What’s more painful than a thousand heartbreaks? It’s being cast aside as the “unwanted” or the “irrelevant”. Believe it or not, this is how some people view content writers. Our eyes are saturated by TikTok, YouTube, Instagram Reels, and other forms of video content these days. So much so, that some people become ignorant of content writing’s relevance.
Despite the rise of attention-grabbing video content, it’s important to acknowledge that most people still utilize Google as their first portal for information. This is where online news and informative written content stand strong. The relevance of written content is growing, if you consider how accessible the internet is now.
Nowadays, the internet is accessible even for five-year-olds with negligent parents. However, not everyone is aware of how content creation has become this prominent. To fully understand how we become readers into viewers, we need to trace back the history of content creation.
The Rise Of Content Creation On The Internet
Actually, the internet and online video platforms don’t have that much gap between their birth. The internet became available for most public use back in the early 80s. The first online video platform, ShareYourWorld.com, launched in 1997. However, it was not until 2005, when YouTube.com made its way, that the popularity of video content skyrocketed. Although, online video content was nothing compared to written content back then.
Online news outlets predate video content on any metrics. With the arrival of the World Wide Web in the early and mid-1990s, news providers quickly adapted to the online world. CNN and The Chicago Tribune were among the first to leave their footprints online for the world to see. The significance and authority of written content towered whatever online video content had by a huge margin.
Even personal blogs had an earlier conception than online video content. Blogging, like what we do here in menulis.id, bloomed on the internet after Justin Hall launched his Links.net in 1994. What followed were flourishing self-publishing platforms like Bloggers in 1999 and WordPress in 2003.
Today, both online news and blogs are available on the internet more than ever. But, what did possibly spur online video content to spread like wildfire?
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Video Content’s Popularity And Short Video Invasion
What irks content writers the most might be phrases like, “Is what you do still relevant?” or “Those YouTubers will take over your jobs”. While most of them come from ignorance, there is one completely valid point. Online video content has been rapidly gaining popularity in the last decade.
YouTube.com’s launch in 2005 sparked a new dimension into the internet. The early days of YouTubers were full of online personalities like Ryan Higa and PewDiePie, who focused on comedic skits, gaming, and personal journeys. However, among them, there are also channels like Vsauce by Michael Stevens. Channels like Vsauce and others within a similar genre bring more educational and long-form content.
Practically, YouTube.com also became a place for binge-able videos. Many channels began to resemble series on TV and were full of every topic imaginable. However, something much more sinister is at our online doors. As early as 2013, there was another form of online video content that nowadays has become the norm among content creators, short videos.
The launch of Vine promoted the popularity of entertaining, funny, short videos on the internet. People would record six-second videos of themselves doing silly stuff and quickly gain an audience online. TikTok followed suit in 2016 and swiftly became the most downloaded-app two years later. Social media has become filled to the brim with short video content, to the point that may endanger people’s attention span.
The Relevance Of Content Writers In The Sea Of Video Creators
Even though people’s interest leans more toward video content, I’d say written content hasn’t lost its throne. Why? Simply because the nuances of reading and watching are so different, they serve different purposes.
People watch videos online to get random entertainment by doomscrollling or to educate themselves on certain topics. Either way, watching videos is like eating a freshly cooked pie with the spoon and fork provided for you. However, that’s all you get, a pie. You still can interact with the video creators, but to actually contribute to their video production meaningfully is a bit far-fetched.
Contrastingly, content writing is more like being served a Lego set. Yes, you are still limited to the topic you searched. However, written content provides the creator with more freedom to make the content more in-depth and tailored for seamless navigation.
By adding links, I can send you to certain parts of the content I write if I want to, like this. It makes written content more scannable and easier to find the information you actually want. Arguably, putting a similar mechanism in a YouTube video delivers the same result. But, in written content, how fast you take information is entirely up to you as the reader.
Furthermore, it’s common for certain communities to form collaborative content writing projects. For example, the SCP Foundation is a community for creative writers to put out their creations in the science fiction genre. The website regularly receives contributions from interested volunteers. Content writing isn’t limited to creative writing only, factual and informative content on the internet pretty much are the pinnacle of content writing.
Nowadays, online newspapers are pretty much the mainstream source of the latest news. There are also plenty of blogs and websites which provide searchable informative content. Aside from legitimate journalists, these contents are also online portals for experts and students of renowned universities. However, the biggest contributors might be volunteers of all backgrounds. Even one of the biggest informative websites, Wikipedia, comprises a group of volunteers.
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