Why Content Farms Hate the Fat Jew, the Ultimate Content Farmer

Life on the Content Farm is a long, drawn out series about how everything in the media is terrible, especially in the business of aggregating pageviews from Facebook likes. There is a cheapening of the written word and 'premium content' because of content farms that churn out more pages and words than everyone else. However, the competition isn't always between seemingly identical content farms. Instagram itself is a bigger threat to the idea that people's attention spans are withering away in a difficult to monetize insular medium.

The Instagram user doesn't want to visit a website or even download a media-stream-based app. They just want to scroll, double tap, and tag their friends. Seems inefficient, but to them, it's just how they pass their time.

This week, the Instagram Famous personality @TheFatJewish aka Josh Ostrovsky has been singled out as 'everything that is wrong' with producing content on the internet. He is a famous Instagrammer who 'only posts memes,' but the magic of his social media reach has led to a line of rosé, a plus-sized fashion line, and representation by Creative Artists Agency.

But these comical memes that are on his instagram are 'ripped off' from various sources like tweets, pre-existing memes, and the thoughts of comedians who working hard to land a 'writing job' where they can rip off the lives' of their friends, family, and sitcoms of yesteryear. @TheFatJew rips off the ideas of many and fails to 'credit' the creator so they can reap the benefits/'social media bounce' of attribution. According to the media and the content farmers within it, the Fat Jew is representative of everything that is wrong with society, the internet, content, and 'what the majority of people find funny.' This content farm crusade may actually be a false flag operation, meant to signal to advertisers that money should be spent on traditional content farm advertising, not put into the bank account of one-man influencers on the insular medium of Instagram.

If you believed these content farms, we should all use our fingers to unfollow @TheFatJew. Those same fingers should like, share, and comment on the content that is anti-FatJew.

But there's nothing wrong with the Fat Jew. In fact, everything that is 'terrible' about him may actually contribute to the death of media and reach. He has amassed a large following of extreme long tail Americans in the Instagram medium. The same people who are 'behind contemporary internet times' for watching The Voice, American Idol, and Dancing with the Stars. The people who really need to evolve to overvaluing thinkpieces and explainer pieces published by big box online content farms.

Here's a few reasons that @TheFatJewish is being churned through the internet's hatred of hate cycle.

People still think the internet is an authentic medium for humor.

From what I understand, people still think that the internet is a place where 'authentic' humor brews. Whether it is a deep message board that creates custom memes or longform podcasts with lifelong comedians 'shooting the shit' and telling stories from the grind of the comedy life in dimly lit clubs, the internet is seen as a place where humor should 'be something more.' You don't connect to the internet to watch episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

@TheFatJewish violates the sanctity of comedy because his 'entire act' is based off the reappropriation of other people's 'jokes' in the language of the internet. The idea behind the Fat Jew as a plagiarist stems from the idea that he 'steals' the content of other people. There are so many original ideas pumped into the internet 'for free,' from the hearts of online comedians who one day could aggregate their own content into a non-internet, IRL personality. Maybe even a content farm of their own if they produce millions of memes per minute and acquired by the ICanHazCheeseburger network.

The media is angry at Instagram 'being used incorrectly.'

Webpage based internet media personalities hate Instagram. It is a medium of beautiful photos and memes, somehow taking the place of Tumblr since there are more constraints on the publishing of content. The lower class of the internet are using Instagram 'wrong' by consuming memes and tagging their friends who relate to the memes. If only they knew Instagram was supposed to be about broadcasting meaningful life experiences and recommending artisan goods and services.

If only @TheFatJewish had a tasteful Instagram of beautiful pictures. He chooses not to use Instagram to be a high-end curator of memes. He could be a mechanism of change, enabling the lower class of the internet to evolve past low-end meme humor. Because of accounts like @TheFatJewish, the internet class divide will only get deeper.

He is successfully 'shilling' product.

The purpose of reach is to sell things. Content farms have to aggregate billions and millions of pageviews in order to sell advertising against impressions. However, @theFatJewish has an advantage as a lone personality: he can sell himself directly to his 5.7 million followers. The Instagram users who identify with his jargon and way of life are more than willing to buy his White Girl Rosé. Stores that stock cheap wine that people drink post-ironically to feel connected to the internet community and create more Instagram moments in which they can tag @TheFatJewish will be swayed to carry this rosé in their stores.

@theFatJewish has cut out the middle man. He has branded his own product in a tasteful way that appeals to his target market. If only his products came across as a poor representation of his digital brand. Unfortunately, he created an amazing Instagram moment for rosé drinkers with his bottle of Instagram juice.

The Milliennial Identity wants to 'create their own happiness' by 'getting rich' for 'being themselves' aka 'doing nothing.'

The internet breeds haters, which is basically armies of people projecting their own insecurities upon people who have already reconciled their absurd place in society. Most of the time the people in the limelight/crosshairs of a media cycle haven't even really thought about whether or not what they do is 'fair,' 'sustainable,' or doing their party to create a better society. They were somehow 'just there' as the world got more ridiculous. All @TheFatJewish and his team of social media interns are doing is trying to make the world laugh [via Instagram]. A world beyond those of us dependent upon content farms to uphold the high-end moral fabric of society/comedy/life as a consumer.

In a world where every Millennial wants to 'get paid' for doing nothing/being themselves, @theFatJewish has 'won', doing about as nothing as you could. It is the same nothing we all do every day by living in the meme economy, except we are not paid. He is 'being himself' and sculpted a marginalized, highly monetizable brand. The Fat Jew bashing media cycle is not just to rank high on search results when people want to know who @theFatJewish is. Content farms are doing their best to justify why advertising budgets should be spent with them, not put directly into the pockets of one man Instagram influencers with direct reach to 5.7 million followers.

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