“Content is king”
Is it though?
Pro wrestler turned actor John Cena has been making the podcast rounds recently, and managed to say something interesting: “Content is king.” Sounds innocent enough, right? No! Because he might as well have said, “Slop is king.” Tellingly, when Chris Van Vliet asked him about a storyline that didn’t make a lick of sense, his response was: “Who cares?”
Well, I care. Fans care. Everyone who wants to enjoy a story that is satisfying and made with attention to detail cares. The better question is “Who doesn’t care?” and the answer is: slop merchants. I get it—WWE’s in the bulk business. They have to produce a billion hours of content every week, so it’s no wonder there are rumblings they want to use AI to write their shows.
But personally, as time goes on, I’ve grown more and more hostile to the idea that content is king. I’ve got no time for haphazard writing. I’ve got no time for stories that don’t move me. In fact, I’ve grown hostile to the word content itself.
Content is not king; it’s tasteless goop shoved into the maw of an indifferent, grotesque, bloated beast loved only by clueless TV executives and producers.
It’s incredible to me that, at a time when people have so many options for how to spend their time and entertainment dollars, the solution companies offer is: “Let’s create an endless amount of subpar drivel for them.” How did this happen? You’d think the way to differentiate in an oversaturated market would be to do the exact opposite: “We don’t have all the shows—we have three. But those three are the best damn shows you’ll ever see!”
Eventually, people get tired of the deluge of crap. It would behoove (what a great word!) companies to focus on material that will bring in viewers/readers/players not just this year, but for many years to come. If you reach for the stars and only get halfway there, you’re still in space!
Meanwhile, here I am, spending several hours honing a single paragraph of a short story, knowing full well that, economically, it doesn’t compute. That’s fine—I’m not in it for the cents and dollars. I just want to create something using the full extent of the talents I’ve been bestowed with.
Anything less would be flirting with blasphemy.
If you’d prefer a pro wrestling tale that isn’t slop, might I recommend checking out the latest issue of Silence and Starsong magazine? It features my short story “World Witching Federation”, about a young pair of wrestlers who get entangled in the world of the supernatural. Can they “hot tag” their way out of the mess? Can a daemon be body slammed? Read to find out!
I feel a little badly for John Cena, and I have never liked his wresting, because he's been a good WWE company man and he's an easy target. Recently they told him to turn heel and I think he made a pretty good effort despite horrible booking. The heel promos he did were the best things he ever did from my point of view. But everybody wanted their hero back and that's what the WWE gave them. He tried to push the envelope but the majority of the fans wanted their same old content (or product) back. To a large extent WWE fans are getting what they want despite all their complaints.
John Cena heard that wrong. Correction: “Concept is King.“
All of our favorite stuff that lives on for decades or even centuries is because of a very cool concept that people love. Lord of the rings, super cool concept. People love it.
The matrix movies, that is concept driven, and has very artistic execution. It has aged quite well.
Particularly with Ai driven content, there will be boat loads, oceans of slop. What will win the day for human creators is to go back to concept and work it until it is awesome. Concept is King.