You may not have noticed, but there is a vast conspiracy afoot to make everything have meaning. Value. Worth. Especially Internet content. Somewhere, some dude with a soul patch and half a goatee is pounding on a table screaming “IF IT DOESN’T HAVE VALUE, IT’S NOT CONTENT!”
Well listen up, Mr. Soulpatch, because I’ve got news for you. ALL media was built upon the promise of delivering nothing to the masses who are apparently desperate for it. In fact, I dare say that NOTHING represents the sheer foundation, the very fabric of what holds our society together.
Don’t believe me? Read on, McSoulpatch. Read on.
STILL READING?
Good. You’re actually making my first point for me. And that is that even when told there is no substance, audiences don’t care. Literally. You could tell them that the content they are reading or watching is actually going to cost them IQ points and they would keep reading or watching just to see how it could be true.
BTW, I make no claims as to how many IQ points this is costing you. But I can say that there are no refunds.
You see, content is content is content is content. It’s the Internet version of “location, location, location.” You don’t have to be anywhere online. You just have to give someone a reason to waste their precious time (and potentially their IQ points).
As long as I keep typing viable sentences, you will keep reading them. Why?
EVERYONE IS ACTUALLY SUPER BORED
I’m sorry if I’m the one to break this news to you. But people don’t really hang out online because they want to. It’s because everything else is even more boring.
Like taking a walk. Sure, it’s refreshing and you get to see things and get exercise, but there is no content being constantly pumped into your eyeballs while you do it, so what’s the allure? Exactly. Nothing. Taking a walk is how you get your fill of nothing, old-school style.
Truth is, the entire reason for the Internet was not to build some vast library of human knowledge that could be freely accessed by anyone at any time to educate and advance humankind. Nope. It was created so that people could share photos of their cat looking angrily at them.
It was created for shitposting.
WHAT IS SHITPOSTING?
Wikipedia, which is basically the Internet version of National Public Radio (always seeking donations, trying to pretend that the Internet is actually edifying), defines “shitposting” as “posting large amounts of content ‘aggressively, ironically, and of trollishly poor quality’ to an online forum or social network, in some cases intended to derail discussions or otherwise make the site unusable to its regular visitors.”
In other words, it’s graffiti. Or rather, it’s the sum of all of mankind’s knowledge and aspirations being met with a platform in which we can truly, democratically, make an enormous difference in the betterment of our fellow man.
Imagine Prometheus, the titan of Greek mythology, putting himself on the line to gain this wonderful tool to raise mankind from savagery (in the myth it’s fire, but it could just as easily be the Internet because I said so), and we use it to share nothing with each other.
Prometheus was punished by being chained to a rock and having an eagle gnaw out his liver every day, which is not really all that bad an analogy for the Internet when you think about it.
NOTHING IS MORE NOTHING THAN THE NOTHING RIGHT NOW
We are, dear friends, right at this moment, in the golden age of nothing. We are in a nothing renaissance, a time in which nothing is valued more than something. Think about it.
Perhaps you are stuck at home right now, doing the “social distance” thing, just looking for some nothing that is better than the nothing you have.
You could choose to read the greatest works of English literature. Or explore history, science, or art. But instead, you’ve chosen to read a blog post about nothing. Like I said, you’re making my case for me.
So let me state my final point in a pointless argument.
PEOPLE LIKE NOTHING
At last we arrive at the truest truth that has ever been truthed. People like nothing. They enjoy it. They actually crave it. Don’t believe me?
How do you feel after a hectic day? A day when you’re pulled in a thousand different directions at once, when you’ve got huge, consequential decisions to make every moment? Do you feel like “hey, I think I’m going to spend my evening studying the problems of the world online in hopes of finding a solution to mankind’s most grievous woes”?
Hell no.
You feel like watching some cat videos and shitposting about nothing.
And if you don’t have the energy left to post, you’re happy just drinking in the nothing. Savoring it’s lack of somethingness. Decompressing in a vacuum.
No, I’m not spying on you. I just know.
I know a lot about nothing.
Now you do, too.
Want to know how to make something out of nothing? Talk to the content masters at DAMN GOOD. We breathe this stuff.
