For most of the past few years, I've had decent discipline about emailing out regular updates for my own life and link roundups for things I've been reading. First it was monthly, then every two months, and then for the second half of this year there has been no schedule whatsoever.

I love making things. This year, I found that a lot of my making has gone into building software at the cost of writing on a semi-regular cadence. I've decided to abandon any kind of regular programming and publish when I have things to say.

I recently had a conversation with my uncle where we were talking about the kind of creation that he does (releasing films and essays when he feels inspired to make them) in contrast with the kind of creation done by influencer types, like those on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.

On YouTube, the way you stay monetized and grow your channel is that you release once or twice a week. When you know you need to release by a certain date and you churn it out factory-style, creative work becomes "content." And content is a slurry that you pipe through a feeding tube into your brain. There's something dishonest about the whole enterprise, but I get why people make it and why people consume it. Respectively, it's money to be made and it's something to pass bored moments.

A few years ago, I started making videos for fun about smoking meat (I know, lol) like briskets and pulled pork. One of the many hobbies I've churned through. Meat smoking turned out to be a popular enough category on YouTube that I was able to monetize my channel. One brisket video I made got 1.5 million views. But after that, I pivoted into just making videos about climbing and being outside. I didn't really want to be a food influencer. Doesn't really interest me.

But I don't climb Denali every week. So my video output has dropped significantly. I received an email the other day from YouTube saying that I would be demonetized within 30 days if I don't publish more stuff or push my watch hours over their thresholds. My reaction to this was, "Well, fuck you then." It's very difficult to make any kind of living off of YouTube anyway, and I was briefly interested in its whole commercial side because I was curious to see how much I could make and what that process looked like. Now I've seen it and I've stared into the abyss.

The abyss for a content creator is what you fall into when your passion for a topic or an activity is swallowed by the need to make money with it and you're forced to run on a treadmill. The thing you're doing becomes devoid of meaning because you have to pump your slurry on time. The act becomes about sausage-making vs. the act for its own enjoyment.

Of course, this is a bleak way of looking at things. And I realize that many people enjoy the slurry-creation process. And you know what, much as I enjoy eating a hotdog every so often, I do enjoy a dose of it when I'm trying to decompress or fall asleep. But I don't really have much interest in making the pink paste.