The death of the content creator (hopefully)
Jun 11th, 2025 - scudoFor the past 20 years or so, any digital media, be it games, video or music, has been called "content", and its creator called a "content creator".
I find that this term - "content creator" - deeply belittling for the person (or people) that create what would be normally called art.
Why so?
Because it reduces all the work and the passion someone poured in a piece of media to a mere filler, something that is supposed to fill some "content void" on social media platforms that the company behind it can't create on its own. It treats the maker of a piece of media as a mere mass-producer of data to fill an online platform, diminishing its value as an effective artform.
Is a video essay not a small movie on its own? Is a digital photograph lesser than its film counterpart? Is a streamer less of an actor that puts up a silly character to entertain its viewers? Is any of this not a reshaping of an artform, apt for modern times?
Art has been constantly reshaping itself, reinventing its ways every time some new technology enters the scene - just look at photography! When cameras first appeared, painters dismissed it as a lesser artform, because "all you have to do is press a button", but now it has had exibits for several decades.
Also: why is the person that enjoys these digital artforms considered "less" - not an enjoyer, not passionate about art, but a mere viewer, that doesn't engage with "proper" art but with a mere hard disk filler - than a person that goes to the cinema to see a film or a documentary?
I call for the abolition of the term "content creator", as I personally dislike this term; it makes people that make what is effectively art look like they are manufacturing something in a production line, something that is "less" than "real art".
