The Power of HelloGiggles, the $30 Million Posi Content Farm

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The Power of HelloGiggles, the $30 Million Posi Content Farm

The key to Zooey Deschanel's content farm success isn't celebrity. It's positivity.

Zooey Deschanel is the commercial muse of the indie zeitgeist, a quaintly packaged artisanal good in human form. But were you aware she was a budding media mogul who launched her own content farm HelloGiggles to piggyback off her personal brand in 2011? HelloGiggles is a content farm for positive messages aimed at young females, founded "as a place on the internet to inspire a smile." It achieves about 17 million uniques per month.

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This week, HelloGiggles was purchased by Time, Inc for a reported $30 million dollars. From a 'big picture' perspective, it feels like HelloGiggles was ahead of its time. Generalized thinkpieces and positive life-lesson-y confessionals that 'rising Millennials' could consume and cultivate meaning from emerged as an important construct of the content farm. When you HelloGiggles, you realize it is populated with perfectly curated content for 'Related Links' at the bottom of pages. The quality of the writing is probably on par for current internet standards, and knowing the content is endlessly supplied by over 1000 'paid contributors' makes the scale of the farm seem even more ripe for acquisition.

But what separates HelloGiggles from the rest of the similarly mundane content crossing your path?

Positivity. All good things are good. Young women hang out there, so even if it seems a little bit like an exploitative content farm labor camp for English/Blogger majors and aspiring RookieMag writers, it's not really worth deconstructing the site and its sale. There is no point in cynically questioning HelloGiggles riding the wave of consumer-friendly feminism as an emerging content vertical. It is a positive platform, immune from cynicism. This is the strength of its brand in the portfolio of Time, Inc.

The media brand that HelloGiggles stands by is a simple, but progressive one in the current digital media paradigm. It isn't about journalism, reporting, longform, timeliness, trends, technology, reviews, or even cultural criticism. The site is meant to be a place for positivity. A shelter away from the negativity of the internet. The attribute of generic internet positivity is often sourced from Upworthy. But most big box content farms have realized that a general tone of positivity is necessary to capture the hearts of long tail internet users.

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This type of content farm creates a culture of positiveers whose lens of the world is curated by the voice of a content farm filled with strategically relatable content. It is impossible to argue with the positiveers. They are the content consumers who escape from the murkiness of the world with the positive tone of the internet.

Like many successful big box content farms, HelloGiggles gives the readers an opportunity to become a contributor. It has truly activated their community towards monetization. The value of their brand extends beyond, but also in the community of writers who are looking to 'get their foot in the door.'

While I could have a 'snarky' take on the cheapening of labor, you have to understand that turning the readers into content creators is the best way to scale your content farm. You must make the members of the community the creators of content. Buy into the power of the brand as a positiveer. This is what allows content leaders to believe that an 'expanding platform' will make meaningful contributions post-acquisition, with 'pivots' into video and 'more resources' to do 'more good.'

They know exactly what they were looking for with submissions.

We love essays that highlight creativity, dream jobs, positive body image, learning to be an adult, friendships, the weirdness of relationships, and learning how to work through tough times (whether it be the big crises, or the small "I just don't like myself this morning" moments). We want stories that make us feel like we're all in this together, whether it's an essay on how a celebrity inspires you or the way a news event connects with you personally.

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What doesn't HelloGiggles want? Snark. The section goes on to ban all takedown pieces.

Snark was once thought to be a valuable building block of the internet. There was an idea that an 'evolved' content consumer was able to break free from mainstream media, finding a place where a more cynical view of the world could marinate. Blogs, Tweet-ers, and social media personalities can lose it all with a dose of negativity.

Users become addicted to positivity, which is a positive outcome even if their positivity is aimless. Positivity makes people feel good. It encourages people to share a page. People don't want to load a web page to feel even crappier about the world. Even small doses of negativity on the internet must be very clearly done with the disclaimer that the negativity was only produced to make the world a better place, sort of like Jon Oliver going on a viral rant.

As humans on the internet, we are all fed content from positive sources. An item trends on Facebook, the content farm quickly generates a positive-headline and positive caption that meets the needs of the positive content-seeking user. Is this tone of positivity stemmed from a genuine place, or with the goal of making the world a better place?

The positiveer would rationalize that even if the positivity wasn't genuine, the world is still a better place with more positivity. By even questioning a positive outcome, you are more than likely ruining the world. The only thing worth criticizing is negativity, all on the behalf of positivity. This is the spirit of a viral medium-form piece on a hot button issue.

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The positive voice of the internet attempts to create a moral binary that makes the siphoning of goodness easier than ever. This approachable mindset allows you to embrace positivity and 'people trying to do good.' Anything that isn't positive can be assigned under the 'bad' umbrella. Life is too short, why would you even bother 'being a downer'?

Internet positivity is something that keeps you from thinking too much. Your chats aren't unethically logged by the government--your chats are places where you can just be yourself. Your cousin's sonogram isn't unsafe in the cloud, it's a thing that you should like on Facebook. It allows you to feel free to share content, despite having hesitations about.people who are post-self-assured enough to share content. Net-positivity would have you believe you are making the world a better place by sharing an 'unflattering' photo of yourself with the simple act of 'feeling yourself.'

It might just be a trick to get you to submit content into the farms and mediums of our time.
Positivity is scalable.
Positivity is a message that can be sold.
Positivity is much easier to explain than 'criticism.'

In 2012, Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti told Pando Daily, "Hate is a good way to build a community… among a small group." He understood the tone of the post-Reddit, post-backlash internet before the media bullying cycle really laid out some low-hanging clickbait for all content farms. Sure, you can get attention from people interested in the negative stories that exist all around us. However, approaching them with a negative tone will limit the ceiling of your ability to grow.

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Positivity is the secret barrier to scalability that most content farms have trouble implementing in a believable way. While HelloGiggles is a relatively small/'boutique' sale in the infinite digital media landscape, the value that they achieved beyond uniques and pageviews. It's in the forcefield of positivity that also magnetizes advertisers.

The necessary positive tone makes it seem as though content has an important role in how we feel. It isn't just dummy content served to robots, meant to inflate the value of your company. That's why it is important for your content farm to be positive. It reinvigorates advertisers with the spirit of the content farm business as people doing more than just arbitrarily bouncing around relatively identical pages of content.

I often wonder if I am actually just a cynic with every Life on the Content Farm post. I am just a bitter, old[er than average] human who is perpetually upset with the way digital media is a pretty pointless dance. The methodologies of scaling remain the same. Occasionally, legacy media companies or rogue investors with money reward smaller media companies in the timely crosshairs of financially motivated initiatives.

Although my critical thinking will be perceived by the internet's positiveers as negative, at least I'm genuine in my critical thoughts. That's my positive rationalization.

Carles.Buzz is the fallen content farmer behind HIPSTER RUNOFF. Read more Life on the Content Farm here.