When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, nobody believed we would be stuck in a year-long horror movie with the internet being our only connection to the outside world. By the end of March 2020, our normal life still looked like a farfetched dream and internet usage had reached 70% in just Europe, giving us a glimpse at the internet surge in other regions. This is no surprise as we were all on our phones learning new TikTok dance challenges, lip syncs, recipes or listening to people complain about the pandemic in a way that made us feel seen. The spike in internet usage birthed the booming creator economy of today.
Before the pandemic, many brands stuck to traditional advertising, utilising celebrities to market their products. However, when the pandemic hit and digitality was emphasised more than ever, things changed. During this time, content creators shifted their content from luxury to everyday relatable life. This authenticity helped them connect to people, creating niche communities. When the brands noticed this, there was a pivot to digital advertising. Content creators have TikTok, the major culprit for the rise of the creator economy, to thank for this. TikTok gave visibility to micro-influencers during the pandemic. Aside from that, it is quite easy to use and calls on you to showcase your creativity. Creators like Elsa Majimbo and Khaby found fame through this medium. As time went by, Instagram also optimised its feed to prioritise creators enlarging the creator pool.
Post Covid, everybody had witnessed the power of digital creation and learnt to create content. We spent a huge chunk of our lives online during the pandemic and even after the lockdown internet usage is still high compared to pre-Covid years. The pandemic taught us about the fragility of life that we became more intentional, maybe too intentional about “documenting” moments when the doors opened again.
In one way or another, consciously or unconsciously the pandemic made us all content creators.
The unemployment rate caused by the pandemic also aided the creator economy. In the course of the pandemic, we saw the lives of many content creators and laymen change for good because of content creation. It has since cemented itself as a worthy career path. The freelance nature of content creation makes it easy to be done as a side hustle or sole profession and it is why many are dropping their white collars for ring lights.
Content creation thrives on the creator’s connection to their community. This demands that you share glimpses of your everyday life constantly because it humanises your content and makes it relatable. So, when we enter a restaurant, we are already checking for the best lighting to make our montages aesthetically pleasing, planning the caption in our heads. This is what Nathan Jugerson referred to as The Facebook Eye which he explains as:
Our brains always looking for a moment where the ephemeral blur of lived experience might best be translated into a Facebook post; one that will draw the most comments and likes.
He wrote this twelve years ago for The Atlantic and it carries more weight now than it did back then. Many times, we forget to be in the moment, to be part of the happening.
Experience is the price we pay for the content creator lifestyle.
The TikTok that trended three months ago verifies this statement. In the TikTok, Parisians are caught on camera counting down to the New Year and for as far as the eye can see, every single person has their phone up capturing the countdown. When the countdown is up, there is a lazy celebration as people continue recording. People did not hold hands or hug. There was no excitement in sight, they were simply concerned with taking videos of the moment they did not experience.
As we experience life less, we are slowly forgoing actual moments for manufactured ones. These kinds of moments are splattered across social media. A video of a wife showing off her “emotionally intelligent” husband but because she forgot to enrol him in acting classes, we can see through the charade. Or a birthday surprise where surprise is absent.
We are constantly performing for social media. We curate our friendships and relationships like a mood board. Our “experiences” need to fit our Instagram aesthetic and match the algorithm.”
And the problem with the algorithm is, it is creating a single experience. There is a decline of varying experiences. Kyle Chayka puts it in better words “the sameness feels inescapable, alienating even as it is marketed as desirable.”
Virality is every content creator’s dream and in our present world, anything can become viral. So, we consistently take multiple aimless shots hoping one hits the bullseye. This is making privacy a nonexistent thing not just for the creator but also for the people around them. How many times have we seen creators’ videos of strangers simply enjoying themselves but the creator found it funny and decided to share the stranger’s private moment without permission?
There is the need to become hyper-vigilant when in public because there might just be a camera pointed at you. Virality also makes us overshare. In a recent series of videos, the popular Nigerian TikToker Flossynaci gave us all the deets on her split with her boyfriend who happens to be a TikToker too. The videos have amassed over a million views. It bared a semblance to the fifty-part “Who did I marry?” that buzzed TikTok. Even parents are becoming more and more comfortable with sharing vulnerable moments of their children for wishful clicks.
In our current digital climate, oversharing is the norm because oversharing makes for good content. It does make the mind wander if we keep parts of self for ourselves.
Content creation has reshaped our view of life. We see life as a wealth of content waiting to be mined instead of a plethora of moments to be experienced.
Should I share this? Will this hit? We have moved from marketing products to being marketed products.
The era of content creation will no doubt last decades. It is a source of employment for many, a short elopement from reality for others. We can’t escape it as it is also important to document our lives. However, there is a lingering need to strike a balance.
