I drew this week’s cartoon inspired by today’s content overload and the circular creator economy.
When I left college in the 90s, I moved to Prague and found a job at Velvet, an English-language magazine for the booming but close-knit expat scene.
At that strange time when Eastern Europe opened up, there were more than 20 different English-language newspapers and magazines in Prague catering to the same small audience.
We used to joke that someday there would be a different English-language magazine for every English speaking expat. Ironically the final issue of Velvet before it folded was a guide to all the English media in Prague.
That was my first experience with content overload.
Mark Schaefer originated the concept of “Content Shock,” which he described as “the emerging marketing epoch when exponentially increasing volumes of content intersect our limited human capacity to consume it.”
Today everyone can be a creator. And the creator tools are all pushing all forms of multimedia all at once. The platform algorithms reward constant posting and repackaging content across channels. AI tools make it possible for digital avatars to pick up the slack even further.
And yet, I like the caution of how P&G Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard once described the situation of trying to keep up with exponentially increasing volumes of content. He said, “we fell into the content crap trap.”
Here are a few related cartoons I’ve drawn over the years:
