Curated

In the internet age we live in now, it’s easy to put content out there. Anyone with access to a computer of some kind and wifi can put a blog up, or post pictures, or create a video for the YouTube or VImeo audience. Platforms are endless, limited only by your imagination and time to post. Social media demands content, be it sharing news stories on Facebook, posting your latest and greatest  pictures and short film clips to Instagram, pinning virtual bulletin boards on Pinterest . . . Twitter relegates content to 140 characters, the modern version of super flash fiction.

The thing is, this content isn’t curated or critiqued before it gets up. Depending on your own inner editor or anyone you share it with before sharing it with the world, the stuff you put out there is not vetted by anyone. Your listeners curate the work, I suppose, by choosing the content they consume. A multitude of curators of one. Chances are good, though, that a lot of people choosing to watch or read or listen to your stuff are friends or family. Consuming out of loyalty, as it were.

I put a lot of content out there. I post weekly videos, write this (admittedly off-the-cuff writing) blog on a weekday basis.  Some days the work is better than others. Some days I wonder if I am creating only for my own benefit, if the public sharing is somehow a form of accountability to my own thoughts. Is there any importance in what I do?

Yesterday I had a meeting that underscored the importance of doing work that means something to me. Because of those weeks of content, because of the over a year of weekly videos, an opportunity has opened up for me that excites me beyond reason. I’ll go into it more as it comes closer to reality.

“Content is king. Photography and camera angles can make something better, but no amount of professional production can get around bad content.” And my content is good.

Friends tell me that they get something out of my videos. Kind of like parents telling you you’re attractive or worthy – they’re supposed to say this kind of thing. But my meeting yesterday was the first time someone who I’ve never met before has said the same thing.

I feel like my work has been curated. I feel like a badass this morning.