According to Hootsuite, the average recommended character count for ‘optimum engagement’ across all social media platforms is 50 characters. That’s roughly 1 sentence.

What this means is, platforms are more likely to reward you when you say less.

A sentence is a summary; the best of what we pocket from a hard earned life lesson, pulled from a much larger story.

We only get great words- words that change the world, inspire, move + re-write history- when we create space for people to say more.

If the main place we spend our time is a platform that shrinks our stories to 15 seconds of video or 50 characters, the impact of what we have to say shrinks as well.

Slowly but surely, we’re turning away from long-form to less than.

We skip over articles and keep the catch-cry;

A headline isn’t a hook anymore, it’s the whole story.

And so, meaning gets lost.

To that I say,

FUCK CLICKBAIT

Support writers, storytellers, philosophers, academics, authors
Read more books + buy magazines
Open articles + subscribe to newsletters
Don’t be afraid to share more words
Show them to your friends
Lift up the independent + the brave
Fuck a like, share a post

If we don’t support artists trying to say more, we’ll soon all be thinking a lot less.

Instead of words that soothe the soul, we’ll be left with clickbait that supports the scroll.

Last month, the New York Times reported that Broadway offered us the best evidence of a drop in audience attendance for live shows, stating that ‘fewer than half as many people saw a Broadway show during the season that recently ended than did so during the last full season before the pandemic.’

Corona hit and we turned to tech to keep the iso blues at bay. We got stuck inside, and we stayed inside. Platforms offered people the opportunity to create from the comfort of their couch; and we got addicted to the tiny taps of serotonin we sipped on while watching what people could do with the bare minimum.

And now ticket sales are down, art is dying and we’re lonelier than ever.

Social Media platforms need a constant flow of content to keep people’s attention. The easiest way to generate a shitload of content is to give everyone the chance to go viral.

So platforms have created a new era of short-form performance (aka ‘trending content’). It's content that you can easily recreate and consume from your couch. These ‘online performances’ are designed to serve the platform, not people. They’re transient, tiny hits of serotonin that are completely forgettable; like junk-food, for your brain.

Seeing a live show on the other-hand, is participating in a one of a kind communal experience that can’t be replicated. It has depth. Whether you’re watching a band play something beautiful, a play that makes you feel less alone, or a set of dancers spinning like starlight across a stage, no two live shows are the same. Each performance becomes a living, breathing conversation between the artist and the audience.

You can’t manufacture a moment like that. It’s either felt, or it isn’t.

Platforms want to give everyone a place to perform 24 hours a day, and easy trends to re-create, so that you no longer have to go out to see a show.

But I’m telling you right now, GO THE FUCK OUT.

Otherwise we’ll all be stuck inside, watching influencers re-create a million similar minutes on a loop.

And if the art of connecting with someone in real life dies, then art itself will die.

It’s called a live show because it’s alive. It needs to be lived through, not scrolled over.

This year, Netflix lost 2.5 million subscribers. It’s the first time we’ve seen a drop on the platform since it launched.

While there’s a few factors at play here, arguably Netflix’s dependence on it’s own algorithms to predict viewer behaviour is leaving very little room for growth.

Simply put, the OG disruptor is no longer taking risks on new stories. It’s rehashing old ones.

That’s why we’ve got a lot of films coming out lately that feel less like art, and more like ‘8 hours of trendy content to keep you on here.’

These are stories birthed by what worked well once before.

Netflix isn’t just stale, it’s predictable.

And people aren’t. Not always.

Martin Scorsese once said,

‘The most personal, is the most creative.’

If we continue to let platforms dictate what kind of art we consume, we’ll lose the weird and wonderfully offbeat personal stories that are often the riskiest to tell (think about it- it’s a goddamn miracle anyone ever agreed to make Back To The Future).

If you love original stories, I’d encourage you to (again) support the artists making them. Get out to the cinema and see indie films and new genres. Open up reviews + get recommendations from places outside of what an app is serving you.

If there’s one thing I can get you to take away from this entire series, it’s that you shouldn’t rely on a platform to dictate the kind of art you consume.

It’s always going to be giving you what best serves its bottom line, not what’s gonna fill up your soul.