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PRODUCT.|PHILOSOPHY.|LIFE.

Content fatigue

I was listening to TJ Miller being interviewed on The James Altucher Show where he was recounting what he hears from fans.

Whenever he performs a stand-up act on stage, people walk up to him after the show and tell him that they loved his Netflix special. But, the thing is, he doesn't have a Netflix special. What he has is an HBO special.

He uses this example to make the point that people consume so much content nowadays that they can't even remember where they had seen what and it is all one big haze.

This is content fatigue. We don't remember what we had for breakfast a week or so ago. We just remember that we did. Sometimes, we don't even remember if we did. Similarly, we don't really remember where we consumed what content. And sometimes, we don't even remember that we did.

This can happen with articles, podcasts, shows and many more things.

But we can always remember the things we did on our birthday or on some other special day, because we are more present and more conscious of what we are doing on those days.

Unless we associate learnings or experiences / memories with what we consume and let them sink in, we will be in a state of content fatigue.

That might make you think that it is impractical and impossible to have such associations for everything that we consume. Which is a valid point.

In which case, is all that content even worth consuming? Is it anything more than a dopamine hit at that moment?

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