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I can't explain why, but I always cringe a little when I hear someone say that they "consume content." Maybe its because I can't tell if brings up animalistic

I can't explain why, but I always cringe a little when I hear someone say that they "consume content." Maybe its because I can't tell if brings up animalistic connotations (a pack of feral hipsters picking at the remains of an endangered podcast on the Serengeti), or if they are intentionally being elitist ("It would be a waste of time to simply read Chomsky's work, an educated person would make the effort consume it.")

nemomarx 2y ago
I get the opposite vibe - you read literature, you consume content like it's generic slop and the quality isn't that important.
- codetrotter 2y ago
  Agreed. It’s like fast food, but for your brain.
  - guy234 2y ago
    Fast food should not be consumed.
    - Sammi 2y ago
      Except on Fridays.
    - Retric 2y ago
      Fast food isn’t inherently bad. What most consumers want doesn’t align with what is healthy to eat. You could get water and a decent salad from chick-fil-a, but when nobody buys the health options they eventually get taken off the menu.
  - smsm42 2y ago
    With the same long-term health benefits.
Boxxed 2y ago
A friend of mine was playing the game Slay the Spire and was loving it -- he said something along the lines of, "It's very well designed, and there's so much content!" That always kind of skeeved me out. I think because there's this odd self-awareness of it all?
- bunderbunder 2y ago
  Ha. This is is exactly what turns me off of Slay the Spire. It's a filler game, full of filler content, designed to fill your time. And not, as far as I can tell, much more than that. "Content" is a commodity. I don't see a huge difference between the folks who view creative work as "content" and talk about it as if it's fungible and can be valued per uni of weight, and art speculators who buy up works of art they've never seen and then leave it warehoused in some freehold somewhere. I can't really blame people who do creative work for catering to folks who think about their work this way - everybody's got to eat - but I'll still gladly bemoan the pervasive cultural debasement.
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    Couldn’t really disagree more, although I guess I see where you’re coming from. Slay the Spire to me lacks “content” at least the way you’re using it - there are 4 classes that essentially have never changed and the levels are pseudo randomly generated and otherwise don’t change much run to run. However, attaining very high levels in that game requires a depth of skill, strategy, and math that is constantly startling to me, and I used to play card games professionally.
    - Forgeties79 2y ago
      I don’t even like deck builders and STS hooked me for solid 30hrs
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  This is exactly why my 12 yr old by likes Genshin Impact (a Zelda type game on the phone): "it always got these new characters" etc. Like infinite scrolling, it's an endless loop to get more gems so you can level up so you can get more new characters as they come up so you can get more gems so you can level up ad infinitum. It's basically like an advanced candy crush that you can just zone out and mindlessly do forever. I hate it.

nemomarx 2y ago

I get the opposite vibe - you read literature, you consume content like it's generic slop and the quality isn't that important.

codetrotter 2y ago
Agreed. It’s like fast food, but for your brain.
- guy234 2y ago
  Fast food should not be consumed.
  - Sammi 2y ago
    Except on Fridays.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Fast food isn’t inherently bad. What most consumers want doesn’t align with what is healthy to eat. You could get water and a decent salad from chick-fil-a, but when nobody buys the health options they eventually get taken off the menu.
- smsm42 2y ago
  With the same long-term health benefits.

Boxxed 2y ago

A friend of mine was playing the game Slay the Spire and was loving it -- he said something along the lines of, "It's very well designed, and there's so much content!" That always kind of skeeved me out. I think because there's this odd self-awareness of it all?

bunderbunder 2y ago
Ha. This is is exactly what turns me off of Slay the Spire. It's a filler game, full of filler content, designed to fill your time. And not, as far as I can tell, much more than that. "Content" is a commodity. I don't see a huge difference between the folks who view creative work as "content" and talk about it as if it's fungible and can be valued per uni of weight, and art speculators who buy up works of art they've never seen and then leave it warehoused in some freehold somewhere. I can't really blame people who do creative work for catering to folks who think about their work this way - everybody's got to eat - but I'll still gladly bemoan the pervasive cultural debasement.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  Couldn’t really disagree more, although I guess I see where you’re coming from. Slay the Spire to me lacks “content” at least the way you’re using it - there are 4 classes that essentially have never changed and the levels are pseudo randomly generated and otherwise don’t change much run to run. However, attaining very high levels in that game requires a depth of skill, strategy, and math that is constantly startling to me, and I used to play card games professionally.
  - Forgeties79 2y ago
    I don’t even like deck builders and STS hooked me for solid 30hrs
insane_dreamer 2y ago
This is exactly why my 12 yr old by likes Genshin Impact (a Zelda type game on the phone): "it always got these new characters" etc. Like infinite scrolling, it's an endless loop to get more gems so you can level up so you can get more new characters as they come up so you can get more gems so you can level up ad infinitum. It's basically like an advanced candy crush that you can just zone out and mindlessly do forever. I hate it.