Hey guys! I know what you are thinking…2 posts in 1 day? Is someone dying? This post was inspired by my previous post so I just had to write it before going on another 4 month hiatus. Without further ado, read on…
There’s a difference between insulting and not liking. You are free to express your opinions on certain topics but that doesn’t mean you can discard the effort someone has put into something. But now that we are talking about this, I want to scale this from just movies or books. Now I’m not just talking as a reader or blogger, I’m talking as a video editor, I’m talking as a website designer, I’m talking as a memer. Creating is not easy. The creative process is very chaotic and sticking through till the end is not for everyone. I have worked on a lot of projects and way more on a lot of unpublished projects that haven’t even made it out there. I have more incomplete blog posts than complete ones. That’s just something every creator has to deal with.
Not every idea is brilliant or has the potential to make an impact. I see so many people trash on song remixes and film adaptations and while I don’t like to do it, I get it. As someone who prides himself on creating ‘original content’, I do get angry when someone who just worked on someone else’s idea actually makes it. But when you really think about it, nothing is actually original nowadays. All of my posts, while written by me are a collection of all the ideas and philosophies I have read. Even my opinions are a collection of other people’s opinions. That isn’t what makes something original in the modern world. Originality in my content comes from my perspective, my spin-offs, my understanding, and my way of expression. Sure those remixes weren’t as hard to make as the real song. But the only difference I see between them is the amount of novelty, how original something is, not whether something is original or not. The whole ‘not-everything-is-black-or-white-thing’s-can-be-gray-too’ idea applies here.
Stretching this analogy further… all of Taylor Swift’s songs are made from chords that other people discovered, sounds hailing from artists way before her time, and lyrics formed by words invented by people before she was even born in an altogether different country. But it’s still her original song. While some adaptations do disrespect the original creator’s work, that doesn’t mean work doesn’t go into making adaptations. A lot of spin-offs contain the creator’s original storyline but it also adds the new one’s ideas. Some of course are shameless enough to make no changes other than mixing the order a bit but that’s not a remix nor an adaptation. That’s just stealing.
The content creation industry is a very vast world. I have been working in it for 2 years and I still don’t know anything. I have a make-do website running on 15 plug-ins that barely work together with a raggedy SEO and non-existent marketing. But the blog’s still running and doing good. I didn’t expect to have 5000 viewers when I started. My main ‘marketing strategy’ was my mom’s WhatsApp status and while my target audience was Indian Teens, my actual audience consisted of friends and family. From there to 5000 viewers with my inconsistent post schedule (even calling it a schedule is funny), I like to think that the people who read my blog are here for the content rather than any other thing. Because not having a good SEO means it’s not easy to find my blog and while I’m working on it, currently the only reason people come back is because they like my content. And as any creator will tell you, the part that we pride ourselves on isn’t how good we market our content or how many people consume it. It’s the content itself because that’s what stays with the audience. Originality is just another metric in this whole content game, but it sure as hell is an important one. I will keep making content as long as I want to, (granted, with a lot of breaks) not as long as people read it.
With that said, those were the two topics I wanted to talk about these 6 months, and knowing myself I will probably be back in another 3. Until then I hope you all have a lovely time, consuming content and enjoying stories, whether as movies or books. Remember to put more importance on how specific content helps you rather than the originality of it. See you soon 💙
