Media is in a real bad state. Taken over by the firehose of constant content, what defines media has been completely overwritten by the sea of drivel meant to distract us instead of enhancing our experience. And the worst part is that we've grown utterly dependent on this stream to tell us what's in and what's out, and what we should and shouldn't like. And as much as I criticize, I'm just as guilty as the rest of overindulging. "Content" is the drug and we're all chasing that fix.

Now this is certainly anecdotal evidence, but damn near everyone I've talked to has said they're dog tired of it. And yeah, I might not talk to many people outside of my circle, but it's certainly a diverse enough group to see the trend amongst them. People are over being told who to listen to, sick of being fed exactly what the almighty algorithm wants them to eat. They miss having a say, having a choice not just in what to pick at the buffet counter, but what's on the menu in the first place. Social media and recommendation algos are great at giving the illusion of choice, but it's just that. An illusion. And when you stare at an illusion long enough, you start to see through the cracks on the surface that reveal a complete lack of depth in decisions.

Unfortunately, I realized a while ago just how futile an effort it is to try and rip away the bottle from the baby. Most of us are already too attached. And like a baby growing up, the people have to be weaned off it instead. It has to be a slow burn. We can't quit content cold turkey, that's just asking for a relapse. So how do we get off the stuff? That's the million dollar question.

Now I'm not one to be defeatist, but it's looking bleak for us, the answers we need are gonna be pretty damn hard to come by. But at the end of the day, the social media era is just that, an era. And while TikTok is the new hottest flavor of the month, theres a clear decline in the satisfaction people are getting from each hit. So to me the answer is to give the people something fresher, something that scratches that same itch but also feels much more rewarding than the half baked cut down stuff we've got now. It may not get us away immediately, but at least it can start the process of detaching.

See, we humans are cyclical creatures, we love our eras, and our generations too. about every 20 or so years the things we experience start to rhyme again. The clothes you wore as a kid come back in to fashion, the movies and shows you watched start to age like a fine wine, the music you listened to wiggles its way back into your ears. The newly washed up ones of us will remember our days of youth scouring the wild west of the internet for music (and getting hella viruses in the process). Limewire, Napster, Frostwire, and so on were the original marketplaces for what we call content nowadays. So now, two decades later, what are we gonna have to match that?

Well, to find out we have to think about what made those sites so appealing, was it because we were wide eyed wanderers, getting our first taste of free music only a few clicks away? Or did it come from the shared experience? Everybody and their mother has a story about crashing their home computer (back when you only had one computer) because they got hit with a virus from a shady download from these sites. So was that commonality the reason we remember what should have been a disastrous occasion so fondly? Most likely it was a little bit of both. Sure the joy of finding the music on its own was immense, like our own little Indiana Jones movie searching for that Holy Grail. But finding buried treasure's not enough for most people, what makes it special is the acknowledgment from one's peers of a job well done and that your find was a real gem. Indiana Jones wasn't just some nobody robbing foreign graves for kicks, he was Indiana Jones...robbing foreign graves for legendary loot. Just like the Holy Grail wouldn't be the Holy Grail if it was just some cup a guy drank from.

That's what makes discovery so enjoyable, it isn't just the discovery, but getting to be your own Indiana Jones finding your own grails and treasure, showing the world the priceless musical artifacts that you "discovered" yourself. Sharing is the most fun part, nobody wants to sit on a pile of loot stashed away all to yourself like Scrooge McDuck, that's just greedy. You wanna put it on display and let the world see everything you've found.

Back in the day you got that discovery incredibly easy. In a time before Content ID's and DMCA takedowns if you had the right program, getting music for yourself was arguably easier that it is now (emphasis on for yourself). But the issue was the network. Accessibility was easy but sharing was the hard part. Nowadays, damn near everything you do is shared, shared playlists, shared stories, shared content, but it's the discovery that's completely underwhelming. In a time where it should be more simple than ever to find new and inspiring artists, instead corporations have bastardized their algorithms to service engagement and click farming for industry plants instead of allowing us free admission to the bountiful garden that lies buried in their databases. So how do we bring back access? How do we get our hands on the goods we've been denied for so long? How do we use these powerful social tools to spread attention to the ones most deserving instead of the ones who simply agree to sign on the dotted line?

These are the golden questions and the biggest issues we face today. Music is moving at a mile a minute and we're all worse off for it. We need to slow it down, stop and smell the roses. Listen to that album a few times through instead of just the singles. Or ignore that TikTok track and check out the artists' discography instead. Take a moment to look deeper at what you listen to. Ignite the fire of self discovery within yourself, watch it spread to those around you, and the rest will come in due time.