Raise Your Hand If You Haven’t Seen Casablanca

One of the greatest movies ever made, yet I would wager too few people have seen it. It’s an old movie. It’s stale content.

In a society that monetizes consumption, those responsible for marketing content give choices that involve profitable consumption — they’re not going to give us the loss leader on the menu. So only content that has monetary value tends to get consumed.

Book publishers can publish the works of Shakespeare, but there’s no margin. And they can’t sell us the “new novel by the author of Hamlet…”

They want us to read Vampire Diaries 37. And yet, if they stopped publishing anything new today we can all go a lifetime reading the best works ever written and not even make a dent.

The same is true for all content: film, television, video games — and yes, even journalism. It’s a matter of convenience and taste. Like fast food, our content palates have been set for junk.

As is the case with food, we are what we consume. We need to set the bar higher for the content we consume.

We need to get on a health-content kick.