Hi there, welcome to The Dandelion Tiger. This is a weekly column on life & style, filtered through the lenses of business and culture, written from my perspective as an entrepreneur and management consultant living between London & Southeast Asia. It’s all pretty fun most of the time, though sometimes it isn’t, but why don’t you come along for the ride?
"It made me think though - even if you were a full time content creator, surely that many videos a week would cause some fatigue? One of the great joys of social media, I would have thought, is that it allows creators to create, i.e. express their creativity. When do we cross the line from creating because we genuinely have something to say, into putting out content for contents’ sake, only to stay relevant in an increasingly saturated, low-entry barrier industry?"
As a former(ish) content creator on Tiktok, this is something I'm constantly asking myself! The burnout absolutely is real – the only way I could eventually get around it was through batch filming, but of course doing that made it easier to tell when others were doing the same, which ruined the "organic" feel of the app to me.
Wow yes it is proper proper work isnt it! When you say former-ish content creator do you mean u have taken a step back to post less consistently but higher qualify or stepped back altogether? Would be interested to know, thanks for sharing ur thoughts!
Totally fair question! I took a ten-month hiatus due to health issues and a busier work schedule, but I really missed creating videos and eventually returned to a slower posting schedule (~3-4 videos per week) last November and have now slowed down even further to ~1 weekly post (if that). I love talking about fashion and sharing my outfits so I don't see myself stopping the video creation process for good any time soon, but I think I'll stick to my tiny corner of Instagram – the culture on Tiktok feels so, so different now (and since there's no Canadian creator fund, there aren't many incentives to stay).
"It made me think though - even if you were a full time content creator, surely that many videos a week would cause some fatigue? One of the great joys of social media, I would have thought, is that it allows creators to create, i.e. express their creativity. When do we cross the line from creating because we genuinely have something to say, into putting out content for contents’ sake, only to stay relevant in an increasingly saturated, low-entry barrier industry?"
As a former(ish) content creator on Tiktok, this is something I'm constantly asking myself! The burnout absolutely is real – the only way I could eventually get around it was through batch filming, but of course doing that made it easier to tell when others were doing the same, which ruined the "organic" feel of the app to me.
thank you for mentioning Sublime in this beautiful roundup!
some of the best rabbit holes on Sublime are exploring algorithmic anxiety/ what social media is going to humans/creators art. Linking them here!
What is social media doing to us? https://sublime.app/collection/social-media
Algorithmic anxiety https://sublime.app/collection/algorithmic-bias
Wow yes it is proper proper work isnt it! When you say former-ish content creator do you mean u have taken a step back to post less consistently but higher qualify or stepped back altogether? Would be interested to know, thanks for sharing ur thoughts!
Totally fair question! I took a ten-month hiatus due to health issues and a busier work schedule, but I really missed creating videos and eventually returned to a slower posting schedule (~3-4 videos per week) last November and have now slowed down even further to ~1 weekly post (if that). I love talking about fashion and sharing my outfits so I don't see myself stopping the video creation process for good any time soon, but I think I'll stick to my tiny corner of Instagram – the culture on Tiktok feels so, so different now (and since there's no Canadian creator fund, there aren't many incentives to stay).