Production Values

Roughly two years ago, during peak isolation time, I stumbled on this new YouTube channel called Ghost Town Living. A guy living alone in an abandoned ghost town? Sign me up. Watched a few videos and I was hooked. There was something about the personal struggles and the whole adventure that was very appealing to me. Fast forward a few short years and things have obviously changed quite a lot. The channel has grown substantially, he's no longer just a guy alone in the middle of nowhere and the channel feels a lot more "mainstream" in a way. Which is all fine and more than understandable. There's nothing wrong with a project like that growing at a fast pace. But for me, the increased production values and overall quality has made me lose almost all interest. And this is not just true for this specific example but also for most things I see on the internet. In almost all cases, an increase in production values translates in a decreased level of authenticity.

I wrote about authenticity before and it's something that is bothering me more and more as I grow older. I can't help but feel that the web is becoming more and more "fake" with time. Why that is the case, I don't really know. My best guess is that people are accustomed to consume content that is highly produced and as a result, if and when they decide to become content creators they have a certain standard they have to reach. And maybe that's a good thing overall, I don't know. It's not like I'm asking for a web filled with shitty content.

It just saddens me that there's probably a ton of very interesting content out there that doesn't get published because the author doesn't feel it's good enough.