Earl Smith
The manufactured content world is full of lists. Some time ago, somebody wrote that the most effective way to generate content is to produce a-how to list. And the tsunami of self-improvement lists was born.
I came across an example recently that caught my attention. The article purported to tell the reader how to get better at communication. But, even the most cursory reading demonstrated that the author was busy turning out volumes of content and was paying very little attention to editing. In other words, hurriedly manufactured content.
The subtitle of the article was “Get Everything You Want In Life!” As if it was just that simple. Follow the three steps in the article and everything you wanted in life will be yours.
Of course, this is nonsense. The subtitle was selected to get you to read the article and, by having you read the article, the author would get paid. And, as to the suggestion that spending three minutes reading an article would fundamentally change your life, most people who think about this would find it insulting.
The lack of editing was the first indication of a content factory in action. The first suggestion was, “Give Everyone A Big Worm Smile!” So, the author uses speech-to-text dictation and does not even bother to check if the result is accurate. Remember, this is an article about better communication.
But the editing aside, the author is arguing that you should manufacture smiles even when you don’t feel them. In other words, create an avatar or a mask to show to the people you are meeting. As T.S. Eliot wrote, “put on a face to faces meet.” The author is suggesting that you be inauthentic. To communicate who you are not instead of who you are.
The second recommendation is to, “Show Genuine Interest On The Other Person!” This grammatically incorrect suggestion is another variation of the “be inauthentic” theme. If you are not genuinely interested in the people you are meeting, the real question is, “why are you not genuinely interested.” Are you so narcissistic and self-focused that there is no room for such interest? Are you not paying attention to what is going on? Attempting to manufacture faux interest is not the solution. Coming to understand your own behavior is the correct road.
The premise of this and so many other similar articles seem to be that, if you just changed your behavior and follow the author’s recommendations, your life would be all peaches and cream. But you need to ask two questions. The first is, would it be your life? Or would you be attempting to manufacture an alternative life? The second is, why would a virtual life be more satisfying than a real one? Are you really going to let your real life go in order to live a virtual one?
In my mentoring and coaching work, I posed these questions early on. If the person I’m working with is not going to be authentic, then what’s the point? If I’m being asked to work with the person’s avatar rather than the genuine person, what real progress can be made? Is it worth the effort at all?
My answer is always no. The first, and most important, journey is inward. To understand, for instance, why you are not genuinely interested in other people. To understand why you insist on creating an avatar. To understand why you avoid being genuine.
If you can come to terms with those issues, then you will smile when it is appropriate. You will be genuinely interested in people because they are genuinely interesting to you. And you will meet them as who you are instead of who you want them to think you are.
© Earl Smith
