Hello Internet: Why Are You Here?

Before I begin, I have a question for you. Why are you reading a blog in this day and age? Text based media material has one foot in the grave, if not both. It’s been eaten up by the likes of YouTube, TikTok, Twitter (no! I will not call it ‘X’). Writers are competing for you precious attention with big brand platforms and short form bite sized content — text has been decimated and reduced to a vassal state. One that is built only in the service of getting SEO hits which directs you to more profitable content like videos or podcasts or rarely but not insignificantly, digital magazines.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that you are here. Come hither and make yourself comfortable in my humble digital space, by all means. But, my hopes of you staying are tiny. Like passing a gigantic carrier ship through an impossibly narrow fjord, retaining attention from digital natives is at once a challenging experience but one which is bound to run into big rocks.

Yet, here I am. Contradicting myself in the very first sentence. By the time I have uttered the phrase ‘before I begin’, I have already begun. There’s no point to this post beyond talking about attention in the digital economy and simultaneously trapping you in it. You wouldn’t find an iota of knowledge or learning if you squeezed the life out of this post but that’s precisely the point: brain rot is real and marketers, advertisers, brands have to utilise it just to gain you attention without adding much value.

Strangely, this is the world we have built for ourselves. It didn’t rain down from heaven. Clickbaiting is the norm but it doesn’t have to be this way. If consumers start demanding more value for their attention, corporations will have to budge. There’s no teacher without a student and likewise, there is no branding without consumers.