Content is consumed thick and fast these days. We scroll through hundreds of tweets like they're nothing, breeze through a bunch of articles and binge loads of YouTube videos without a second thought. Of course this isn't entirely a new phenomenon, newspapers are daily, and radio's been going for far longer than any of us have been around.
The speed society digests content can be difficult for content creators. I feel as if I'm constantly typing away on the next blogpost, and the minute it's finished I'm worrying about what's coming next.
There always has to be a next post.
For there to be a next post there needs to be a new idea.
To make a new idea become reality there needs to be time.
But there isn't much of it, as life's just as fast paced as the speed we take in all this content being made, being forced on us from every angle.
All of this culminates on an incredible pressure to be creative. Creativity isn't something you can force, that's something everybody knows. Your best ideas don't come to you in the moment you're desperately clawing at anything at all, likewise your best work will never be that which you've made to out of simply needing content to fill a space. I'll hold my own YouTube channel up to attest to that, for months I made videos just so that there was fresh content to be watched, even if I personally thought they were, well... shite.
But I want to make content week by week. I manage on this blog, just about, although I have more ideas than time and resources for the blog really. It's not just about being creative, it's about being resourceful, managing time effectively and being creative.
For YouTube I can find myself struggling with ideas and really battling with the concept vs the final product. An idea seems great on paper and then you're watching it back on iMovie and realising that it's all quite dull in reality. No one is going to want to watch something you yourself find tedious to sit through.
Although there's a whole market for watching hot knifes cut through various things, so I'm sure there's an audience for all my boring crap out there.
Although there's a whole market for watching hot knifes cut through various things, so I'm sure there's an audience for all my boring crap out there.
What this spiel boils down to is that being a content creator means always thinking, always innovating, always working and never, ever switching off. The minute you switch off as a blogger, as a writer, as a producer, as a YouTuber, as a musician, whatever, is the minute you slip and fall behind. Or so it seems from the inside. A little break never hurt anyone, but my god does it feel like it will.
So friends, family and fellow creators what do you think? How do you find the battle of creativity?
