The Word 'Content' Should Be Retired

3 points · October 2026 · 2 comments

Nobody who writes anything calls it content. Nobody who films anything, or draws anything, or makes anything, uses that word about what they made. The word is used only by people whose job is to fill a space, and it describes the thing from the point of view of the space.

That is the objection. Content is what a container calls what is in it. It has no shape of its own; it is defined by what it fills. An essay is not content. A song is not content. They become content only when a platform looks at them and sees, not an essay or a song, but a thing that occupies a slot and keeps the user scrolling.

When we use the word about our own work we adopt the platform's view of it. We say: what I made is, first and most importantly, a filler. Everything else about it is secondary.

Refuse the word. Say what the thing is. If you cannot say what it is, that is worth knowing too.