When Tragedy Becomes Content

In the current content farm paradigm of online news consumption, it has been difficult for me to feel at ease with big box content farms and their coverage of ISIS. After their signature Western world attack in Paris, it has offered the group a context at scale. The reliance on terrorism and terrorist acts as a digestible meme in the same context as a Blue dress, a red Starbucks cup, or a 'controversial' celebrity makes me crave more from big box content creators.

I am insecure about my 'Western' world's meme creation methodology--it is difficult to filter through the thoughtful, meaningful coverage versus the infinite, directionless posts that feed into eternal newscycle narrative-driving. With seemingly infinite sources posting coverage of terror attacks, it's weird to think about online media mentions quantifying success for terrorist groups. 'News outlets' have found a way to deconstruct news beyond 24-hour cable news networks.

Covering everything with a tolerant mindset can have negative consequences, especially as we strive to understand the societal forces that fuel radicalism and terrorism in areas that aren't immediately identifiable. Irresponsible content farming facilitates terror, packaging horrific acts as meaningless daily content meant to get a rise out of the online reader. It positions terrorism in the same 'good vs bad' binary that we use to interpret daily viral trends. Content farming doesn't appropriately break the fourth wall of online perceptions to deconstruct their place as ISIS's most accessible window to the Western world.

ISIS has turned themselves into a trending topic that only plays into the big box content farm's content production schedule. Whether you are the website of a respected newspaper, a startup media company, or the local news, positioning ISIS as a followable trend establishes a cultural consumable. Regardless of the death tolls, the violence, or the executions, content farms are not taking a moment to create fulfilling content that offers depth and global solidarity in the internet mass that we are suspended in.

Do all realms of media need to be deconstructed in order to battle violent acts fueled by intolerance?

Acts of terror create a high demand for world news, removing the typical content farm consumer from the typical red-blue opinionating, and celebrity news. Polarizing events and tragedies happen everyday, but terrorism offers deep content and scalable interest levels. ISIS has found a way to not only infiltrate our minds, but they have made the Western world obsessed with the group in the digital realm. By honoring the digital as a direct reflection of reality, we empower terrorist groups to reach us.

Terrorism requires a terrorist group's infiltration of a culture's mass media mechanisms in order to infiltrate our minds. Terrorist groups know how to use the cultural literacy of a nation's own culture against them, which in America's case is the online media's content farming model. It preys upon our consumption of information as meaningful news from trustworthy sources, trickled into our stream of consciousnesses via social media. Terror finds a way to make global occurrences feel more personal, with sensational acts getting covered intensely, and with a scale made infinitely easier by content farms.

The fourth wall of online media is never broken by the big box content farm. They do not question Facebook, Twitter, or any other method of traffic acquisition and the highly monetized digital mediums that define 'real world influence.' These are the same digital mediums that reach disenfranchised Muslim youth to join ISIS. Both are dependent upon the reach and perceived reality of media outlets and their mediums of social sharing.

But what can I do as an internet consumer in order to feel like the content that I consume is responsibly curated? In order for an individual to fight terror in the online realms, he or she must seriously deconstruct their online media habits. Think more about the connection between reality and infinite pages of content, as evidenced by often irresponsible links in the sidebars and beneath stories. Think about the consequences of and lack of interrelatedness between many issues that require you to make an automated value judgment. Think about how to extrapolate real information when it comes to coverage of gun control, abortion, terrorism, mental health, race relations and other boilerplate issues that are perpetually exploited by content producers.

A genuine source does not exist to provide absolute truth and reconciliation of values. There shouldn't be a choice between liberal and conservative media, or television versus 'independent online media.' Media should be a source of information and meaningfully curated discourse around this information. The assembled mechanism is broken. This is almost impossible for a broad content farm to execute because learning curves aren't scalable. It is much easier to stoke the flames of conflict.

Can an individual on the internet 'fight' ISIS?

One of the media narratives to emerge from the ISIS attacks on Paris was the rise of Anonymous and their public digital fight against ISIS. Soon after that, many content farms got on board questioning the actions of Anonymous, speculating that perhaps Anonymous was getting in the way of real counterintelligence hackers. I have no way to know what is actually true in this weird realm that is beyond my grazing ground of internet.

But part of the internet user's interest in Anonymous's online war with ISIS is our desire to be a more vigilant, responsible internet citizen. Understanding that the disenfranchised turns to the internet to find a micro-community with whom they can find solace, somehow stumbling around these interconnected pages of sponsored links attempting to build a picture of the world worth identifying with. It's easy to understand why there isn't much meaning to assemble.

The internet is a place to prey on the impressionable, framing reality for them. Facebook groups, vlogging communities, message boards, Reddit threads, are certainly not equal to making your way to Syria to join ISIS. But understanding how one's own forays in the digital realm can lead you to dark corners of the internet should be the real motivation to create an internet that is genuinely identifiable. In these infinite pages of meaningless content produced by content farms, we need to think about what they say about 'Western'/American culture globally, and how to genuinely improve cultural tolerance with more than just exploitative memes that are curated for already-tolerant audiences.

Is this an opportunity for the content farm to become self-aware?

The largest content farms claim to have the widest, most meaningful influence on groups of people when they are selling themselves to advertisers. They highlight their ability to create authentically engaging content with metrics that indicate an tactile reach that invades the hearts of readers. It feels like the big box content farms are placed in a position where they reflect the cultural leanings of 'the West' to those that are looking for screenshots that make American and European news sources worth hating.

In a way, Western content farms must dedicate themselves to winning a propaganda war that might be implemented as a cultural advocacy project that supplements controversial content that is interpreted as meaningless clickbait. While genuine advocacy of any cause is difficult to implement, who should be able to do it better than content creators worth hundreds of millions? Maybe it will take an interlinked coalition of big box websites, launching verticals to promote global tolerance. Content farms should bring their memes to content with better intentions, highlighting content that raises the level of discussion beyond 'Muslim bad, Christian good,' even though that goes against the grain of the mass audiences.

Big box content farms make me feel like there is no incentive to empower global citizens with information because our calibrated tolerance already has a content farm whose voice allows us to feel at ease with our ideologies. Curated tolerant acts recorded on video and insincere positivity are pervasive across broad content farms making it hard to determine if feel-good memes as a barometer for change are actually powerful.

ISIS has brought 'the Middle East' and the broken relations between nations and cultural ideologies within the region back into the American sphere of consciousness. Content farms have no incentive to redefine synonymous terms like 'terrorist,' 'Muslim,' or 'Middle-Eastern.' There is no reason to acknowledge that one's own farm could self-identify as 'Western.'

This makes it hard for me to identify as the global citizen I want to be, rather than the simplified American that my big box media sources project me to be.

Life on the Content Farm is a weekly column about internet media written by the last relevant blogger.