What's the value of reading right now?
And how can creators of long-form or literary content connect with audiences when the algorithm prefers cheap thrills?
A couple of weeks ago in my recommendations section I shared a new podcast I'd found called ‘The Asian Bookshelf’, all about shining a spotlight on Southeast Asian writers and their work. This led me to the book ‘Dirty Old Media Men’, which I enjoyed and I contacted the hosts to congratulate them on such a highly produced podcast and a great recommendation.
Yesterday I met one of the founders and hosts who told me that there is unlikely to be a second season. Why? I asked, saddened by the news. She cited a lack of listeners, lack of publisher interest and frustration at finding an audience online.
Anyone who has ever started a blog, podcast or YouTube channel will be familiar with this feeling and it always takes longer than you imagine to find your tribe. But it did get me thinking about the challenges of bringing deeper, longer, more intellectually rigorous content to public consciousness, which is an increasing concern for our time.
Recently I have read articles with titles such as 'Students can’t read long books any more, says Oxford professor', 'The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books' and, related to that, 'Phone dope is the addiction of our times'. I was reading these enroute to my meeting yesterday on the MRT. Along the way I took a moment to look left and right at my fellow phone-focused commuters and saw that all the people to each side of me and several opposite (whose phone reflections I could see in the windows) were all on TikTok or social media apps with TikTok style video scrolling.
Are we engaged or distracted?
Publishers and platforms would claim these people are "engaging" with "content" but I would argue precisely the opposite. They are not engaged at all. They are distracted, and becoming increasingly so, by tiny, inconsequential clips, each one like a single French fry unconsciously imbibed from a never-ending pack. But what happens if you want to create content with more depth or length? Where do you find the audience for that? And, perhaps more bewilderingly, how do they find you amongst infinite algorithmic recommendations for the titillating, enraging and inane?
This question was the source of much of our conversation yesterday and I floated the idea that reading books, as one example of a deeper, longer medium, is becoming much like listening to vinyl records.
Just about everybody listens to music but for most people that just means putting on a generic playlist in the background, something to distract them from the job at hand or to create a 'vibe' in the room. Music is not something they think about much or engage with particularly deeply save for a few classic tracks connected to teenage memories.
There is, however, a much smaller group of people for whom music is more than a mood-maker, it is high art crafted by rare talents whose way with words and notes articulates their inner thoughts and illustrates their inner worlds. It is something they will invest in, collect, display and pore over at length. I think books are going the same way.
Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast. To soften rocks, or bend the knotted oak.
William Congreve, playwright, poet & politician (1670 - 1729)
News, reviews, interviews and other written content is just as abundant and free on the Internet as music is and, like music, it is having to become shorter, more catchy and deploy instant hooks to capture attention. Although developed societies read and write more than at any time in history thanks to emails, text messages and the ubiquity of screens, only a small subset care enough to purchase whole books, create space for them in their homes and actually read them. Reading has become a niche activity, and I get why, but I do think it’s a shame. Allow me to explain with the help of Charles Dickens.
What the dickens has Dickens got to do with it?
I've been doing battle with Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’ for most of this year. It started well enough but around the halfway mark I began to struggle (about page 220 in my edition), and in the last couple months I have only ploughed forth another forty pages or so. You may be thinking, Why bother? Give up! What can you learn from a book written in the 1860s anyway? Well, one of the reasons I'm struggling is because my attention has been hijacked by shallow, short form content and I’m determined to get it back. That sometimes means sitting with the discomfort of a difficult passage and not giving in to the restlessness that can only be relieved by my phone. And every time I make it through that discomfort I feel like I have won another small battle in the war to regain my attention span.
For me, reading Dickens isn't so much about experiencing the story but the times. I find that immersing myself in the London of the mid-1800s gives me a much greater appreciation for the world I live in today and, over the longer term, a growing sense of gratitude and peace of mind.
Like going to the gym, the pleasures and results of reading are not always immediately obvious. Sure, sometimes you get that endorphin hit from a great workout or a pacy thriller but the real benefits occur over the long run and you have to trust the process. No one ever regrets going to the gym instead of having another pint, and no one ever regrets reading a book instead of finding they've spent two-hours mindlessly scrolling on their phone.
Sorry, I got distracted, what was the question?
So, where does one go to find an audience with an appetite for content of substance? It's as important a question for me as it is for ‘The Asian Bookshelf’. I'm not exactly overwhelmed with subscribers and I long for more interaction with like-minded people but the algorithms don't like my long-form content any more than I like what they serve me (don't get me wrong, I am still prone to a Twitter doom-scrolling sesh and I follow far too many 'baddies' on IG but, like with drinking alcohol, the benefits no longer outweigh the regrets).
Although we’ve had a recent boom in vinyl record stores in Singapore, we have lost Books Actually, Epigram Books and Time Bookstores in the last couple of years alone, which is a real shame because I think physical spaces are probably part of the solution to reducing reliance on the algorithm.
With the barrier to entry online being so low, the volume of content so high and the prevailing cultural currents so powerful I wonder if it might be better to step out of the infinite stream of social media and go somewhere less distracting and more engaged instead; the bars and bookshops, cafes and coffee shops, gigs and galleries where more meaningful connections can be made in person, through performance and even in print 🤔.
Recommendations
Speaking of physical spaces and communities the Singapore Writer’s Festival is coming up with 20% off tickets extended to 28th October here: https://www.singaporewritersfestival.com/. I am particularly intrigued by the session entitled ‘Tech Talks: Exploring AI’s Impact on Literary Arts’.
On 2nd November the Asia Creative Writing Programme “welcomes all levels of writers for a day of inspiration, invaluable learning and networking with authors and fellow attendees” at their practitioners conference here: https://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/acwp/conf2024/
And if you’re into collecting vinyl as opposed to collecting or writing books, indie label Mosta Records is putting on it’s first record show on 2nd November with a cracking line up:
Finally, in anticipation of this year’s Booker Prize, coming up on the 12th of November, watch former political prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s powerful speech from last year’s ceremony on the deep impact and power that literature has in society and in our lives.
That’ll do ya! Nx
Totally agree mate.
It’s a conscious choice to try wean yourself off ‘fast food’ content and consume more steak, as it were.
There will, I hope, always be enough people that enjoy the finer things in life …
Thank you, Neal. What is so frustrating is that one is caught up in all of it, no matter how clear-eyes one is and how hard one resists. BTW, I also recently re-read Great Expectations and was surprised at how wonderfully it still holds up. The writing is so entertaining. Well, anyway, cheers to long books and deep conversation. I enjoyed this.