Age of dis-content

It’s going to be a highfaloutin one. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I remember a debate I had with a writer friend of mine years ago. It was her contention everything is art. Everything. Anything you can look at, anything you can see, is art. Following her logic, that would mean everything from dog droppings to curbside refrigerators to posters of IQ45 could be called art.

I however—and I know this will come as a shock— took a contrary position.

It was my view that art must not just create an emotion, but must have an artistic redemptive sensory value, a unique and individual aesthetic and expression that’s intentionally created.

The Artist blog, in part, has this to say about it:

“The dictionary definition of art says that it is “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination, especially in the production of aesthetic objects” (Merriam-Webster). Art is essential to society as it stimulates creativity, reflects culture, fosters empathy, provokes thought, and offers a medium for expression. It enhances society’s intellectual and emotional understanding of the world.

In other words, they agree with me. Being married and having worked in agencies I’m not used to that so I love it when it happens.

And speaking of agencies, that brings me to the point of this piece: content creators.

We’re in a day where everything you can post is considered content. But my argument would be the same as with art: if you define content simply by it being there, then yes. That would mean the idiot comments on Yahoo, Instagram photos of your breakfast and agencies posting their client logos five times a day on LinkedIn would be considered content. But if you, like me, feel content must be meaningful then everything is not content.

In my experience, agencies like to advocate for the idea that they're content creators extraordinaire, with their finger on the social pulse of their target consumer. How's Tide's agency doing with content creation? They have just 60K followers on IG. Kleenex has 31K. Genesis does a little better at 366K. Charmin does a little worse at just under 29K, although to be honest the pictures they'd need to post to get more followers are the ones no one wants to see.

Like "influencer" or "storyteller" before it (see what I think about the "storyteller" image here)—two titles also used recklessy and often at agencies—"content creator" is just another bullshit title anyone can claim anytime they post anything.

Is this post content? Maybe. Is it meaningful? Doubt it. Will it stir up any emotions? Probably. Just not the ones I want.

I can't wait to see how it ends

Advertising has never been shy about being behind the bandwagon, then jumping on it and saying they've been steering it the whole time. It's also a business that's never met a buzzword it didn't like.

If you've been on any agency website recently, usually in the About section, you've probably noticed the unholy alliance of bandwagon with the buzzword du jour: Storytellers.

Apparently agency creative departments aren't staffed with copywriters and art directors anymore. Instead, they've been replaced by storytellers.

I get it. It's a romantic notion, and it plays well in pitches where the client is told how the "story" of their brand will be conveyed to the waiting masses. Like many other things in advertising, it's hyperbole.

It's the janitor calling himself a sanitation engineer.

I can't exactly tell you why this trend pisses me off so much. Maybe because it's so blatantly untrue. Or the image it conjures up is of someone who's facile with exaggeration, able to spin a yarn or an impossible - and unbelievable - tale out of thin air.

And if there's anything advertising needs to be more of, it's unbelievable.

Storytellers, the really good ones, are skilled at the practiced art of spinning straw into gold. But when the story's over, compelling though it may be, you're still left with straw.

Storytellers, brand stewards, marketing gurus (yes that was on one of the sites), dynamic social directives officers. Whatever. It all sounds false and a little desperate to me.

As for the agencies who insist on calling themselves that, I believe their future can be summed up in two words found in every story.