Published: 2021-05-14T00:00:00.000+01:00
Edited: 2025-02-24T00:00:00.000+00:00
Status: 🌲evergreen

Writers aren't content creators, they're artists

Reading time: 4 minutes

I imagine you've seen the phrase content creator bandied about. And, if you're like me, you've wondered what on earth that means. The term seems to apply to everyone from the latest YouTube star to people who write here on Medium. And encompasses everything in between.

But what is a content creator?

In order to find out, I went to my trusty friend, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, to see if they had any idea what it might mean.

Now, Merriam-Webster doesn't have a definition for content creator, but it does define content.

Content: Noun,

1 topics or matter treated in a written work,

2 the principal substance, such as written matter, illustrations or music offered by a website.

So, taking that second definition, a content creator is a person who creates the matter, creates the meat, the content if you will, for a website, be that writing, illustrations, music or indeed videos.

Okay, so far so good. It's an accurate description of what I'm doing right now.

Except I'm dissatisfied with this answer.

The reason I'm dissatisfied is due to the so-called "content mills" that are out there. If you've not heard the phrase before, a content mill is a website, aimed at writers, that asks for your writing and promises to pay you for it.

They're often the first jobs a freelance writer goes for because they give you your first professional job and allow you to get your foot in the door. But what each one of these content mills has in common is the rate of pay is far, far below what any industry standard or professional body would consider the base rate of pay for writing.

I imagine there are content mills out there for videos, music and illustration too, but as a writer, these are the ones I've come across Regardless of what content they ask for, they pay peanuts for your work.

This is why the idea of writers as content creators bothers me. Because when we talk about writing as content, and writers as content creators, we devalue the writing that person does. We're reducing the writer down to "someone who makes stuff for a website."

Which isn't necessarily a problem, because here I am writing away, making content for a website. But here's the thing; defining a writer as a content creator, as somebody who produces the content, the primary matter of a website is a very limiting view of a writer.

Not all writing is content. I mean, there are endless swathes of what I write that will never make it onto a website at all. Thank goodness.

None of that writing is content.

This includes my novels, as well as novelettes, etc. It also includes my journaling, which is honestly some of the most important writing I do. None of it is ever going to see the light of day on a website or otherwise, but it's still writing.

And though I write for Medium, produce content for Medium, it's only the tip of the iceberg of my writing output. And I suspect that there are many other Medium writers who are the same way.

Writers who write for Medium as their primary writing activity. It may even be their primary source of income. But I'm willing to bet that there is almost nobody who is writing on Medium, who produces content for Medium and no other writing, who makes no other art.

I think the phrase content creator is used not only to devalue our work, to devalue our art, so those who would exploit us can offer to pay less for our work for art than it is worth. I think the phrase "content creator" is also used to make us devalue ourselves.

Be honest with me, how did you react when I said that writing is art? Did you have an instinctive urge to push back against that? Did you hear a voice inside your head that said "well no, of course it's not!"?

Why isn't writing art?

Why do you feel the need to insist it isn't?

Even something like a Medium post---and the word even there is working to devalue this form of writing for which I apologise---even a Medium post, though it's most likely to be non-fiction, is still art. By writing a post for Medium, you are still creating something that didn't exist before. You're still making art.

And I put it to you that this phrase, content creator is used deliberately---not because it's an accurate description of what we do or because it's useful shorthand to encompass a wide variety of artistic pursuits and activities---but because it's harder to define. It's less instinctive.

Even I, as someone who writes, creates content, for at least one website can't instinctively define a content creator without checking a dictionary. It's difficult to describe.

And if we can't easily describe what we do as writers, as content creators, then how can we ask ask for what we're worth? How can we demand our work, our art, be valued correctly and given due recompense for it?

I believe the term content creator exists to stop us viewing ourselves as writers and artists. Because when I say "writer" what do you think of? I imagine a novelist, or a poet. It's easier to say that kind of writing is art, nobody can disagree with that.

But writing content for Medium, or your blog or a content mill?

It's still writing. It's still art.

This kind of writing is still worthwhile, it is still a value. Even though it is also content for a website.

I think we might be about to reach a tipping point with writing and content creation. Because there's only so long that predatory websites and content mills can continue to convince us that what we are doing isn't worthy of the title of art. There's only so long they can tell us we are not writers and therefore we do not deserve what industry guidelines or professional bodies say is the bare minimum.

I'd wager that many writers who think of themselves as as content creators don't know what the accepted minimum payment per word is for their style of writing. And I'd wager that almost none of these writers have joined relevant professional bodies like the Science Fiction Writers of America or the National Union of Journalists.

If we as writers aren't joining unions or other bodies that look out for our welfare, because those things are for "real" writers, that robs us of our ability to collectively bargain for what we are worth.

And I don't think that's an accident.

Originally published at medium.com