On content, writing, and art

Yesterday I was emailing with the always lovely Robin Harford, who has a wonderful website over at eatweeds.co.uk. We were discussing the sad state of the web, and wondering what can be done to prevent Google and the others from abusing our content. And within that discussion, he mentioned his hate for the word “content”. He’s not the only one who feel that way; I’ve seen quite a few people mentioning this issue of the use of the word “content” to describe the product of someone’s creativity.

As I said to him via email, I don’t have the same issue with the word, but that’s maybe because I’m not a native speaker and to me “content” doesn’t carry a connotation of any kind. If you say “content creator”, though, that’s a different story. He used the word “art” to describe the product of his work, and I have no issue with that. He’s a writer after all, and writing is an art form.

My 5 years of high school were spent at an art school, studying traditional goldsmithing, as well as art in general. And maybe this is how my brain is wired, but to me the word “art” usually isn’t attached to written content. I also don’t consider myself a writer. Which is funny because when I get asked to describe what I do the most succinct definition I often use is “writer of code and words” since that is what I spend my time doing in front of this screen. But reflecting on the use of these words made me wonder what even is this thing I’m doing here on this site.

This is clearly writing and, therefore, I am a writer. But in that case, we’re probably all writers. We all text and send emails and post online. Are we all writers? What makes a writer a writer? The medium? The length? The meaning? The time spent?

As I said to Robin via email, I think of what I do here as public emailing. I sometimes have thoughts appearing in this brain of mine, and I decide to share them in a way that’s public. These are attempts to communicate, to make connections, to encourage dialogue. But maybe that’s also what artists try to do with their art? As always, many questions, not as many answers.