The addiction behind content creation

Back in 2019 when I was studying advertising in Toronto, I had a professor open my mind about content creation in social media. He used to say that if you wish to become a social media manager but you don’t create content and don’t understand how the platforms work, you’re not in the right direction. Well, I didn’t become a social media manager, but I definitely consider myself a designer and a content creator of some sort. But how do we create content just for the sake of creativity, without getting lost in the process?

Is being famous on all these platforms as a content creator going to fulfill my desire of achieving success?

Knowing your purpose to create content is crucial for personal fulfilment, but if your goal is simply to become famous through your content, you are doing it wrong. It’s well known that most, if not all, content creators struggle with their creative processes, because they only see one side of the coin, which is fame. From taking breaks with the sole purpose of checking their notification box, to asking friends and family to like and comment on a video they just posted is killing their creativity. I truly relate to them, though. It’s addictive when you begin getting likes and followers, especially when the platform does everything it can to hold our attention and waste our time.

But creating content should be much more fun and cathartic than that. It should be an interesting and exciting journey with lots of learnings along the way, and don’t get me wrong, many mistakes will be made and problems will arise, but none of these struggles should affect our already fragile mental health. So, being able to comprehend why you begin to make content in the first place is vital for mental clarity and fulfillment. However, what many of these creators have and share is just an illusion. They will often pretend to be someone they aren’t in order to please their blind and needy audience, ultimately causing on them a desire to become just as shallow as their idolized creator. It’s in this stage where many content creators get lost and start aiming only for fame rather than building a strong community and learning about themselves.

I’m not saying social media is all fake content and it’s bad to strive for fame. What I’m saying, or at least trying to say, is that people become so blinded by the idea and the concept of wealth and fame that they forget their first and most important purpose.

Is there any other way to be recognized today?

We all know the relevance of being present on all social media, especially when you’re trying to grow your audience. But is there other any other way to be recognized nowadays? Maybe this is a topic for another blog. What I can affirm is that we need social media to share our journey. But it can be a harmful path if we don’t know our purpose in the platform, because it’s clear that half of the creators are not fulfilled.

We are all the same: Boring

To sum up, fame shouldn’t be the primary reason we make content, cause if it is, we are all going to end up in this loop hole where we just follow the trends and lose our authenticity, becoming the complete opposite of what we show online: boring and depressed.