I've definitely felt this change and I think its part of the reason I've started falling out of love with Basketball to some extent over the past few years - even as someone who has consumed a lot of basketball and sports 'content' for the better part of my entire life now, its hard to find things that you connect with. Maybe thats just getting older, but alot of it is just swallowed up in being over commodified or obscured - much like the sport itself is.
when I started working at a magazine in 1994, I didn't have Internet access and there was no texting. I had to call every source on the phone. It took a certain courage and energy, like being a door to door salesperson. I think it favored people with a certain personality type, and language skills, so more voices were excluded...with that exclusion, there also wasn't bot or AI created content. I can't remember what my point was!
Thanks for this one, Katie. You talk through and explore so many thoughts that run through my head these days, especially with regards to writing in an exploratory manner, and the temptation to bend towards Content. Water to share this with my friends, and to bounce our ideas off each other.
So good. “It takes too long on either end.” This is the thing: having the time and space to actually write. I try (and have lately failed) to get just one essay out each month. As a non-writer who likes writing, it’s tough to squeeze in this hobby (I think I am also probably really inefficient and spend way too long thinking about thinking) but still having actual writers paid to have that time is important or we’ll end up with even more atomized one offs as people come and go and then, like, 25 people who work at the New Yorker, and nothing in between.
What’s your thoughts on WHY these former, now dissolved publications (who, mind you, were full of written artistry) went away? Do we crave Content more than we do art now? Have we be conditioned by social media to doom scroll through half-hearted, generic matter-of-factness?
Is it a generational gap? Etc etc etc., not to ramble.
The time element – things taking "too long on either end" – is massive, I think. And it's not just the writing. Like, getting the juice to write things from a different POV, to bring together multiple interests and reference points, to learn how to mix all that together into a distinctive voice/tone/whatever takes years.
Who has the time and space to develop that? In public? (The answer, same as it always was, is the rich or the patroned. But still.)
Even people like Bill Simmons, who's imitated to death now, was once novel because of his voice and pop-culture inserts. He had the time to work that out and to build up the catalogue of media from which to draw.
That stuff takes time. And, if time's short, writers and media companies tend to fall back on patterns. Hot take, trade machine, embed tweets, 4 dudes on the podcast.
So few people break through that and offer something new. I feel like Shea Serrano did it? And I loved the POV the Spinsters podcast brought. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. (And discoverability is a whole other thing.)
I've been thinking about it myself for a while. I've toyed with the idea of writing about basketball, just for fun. Got an article noodling around about watching DeMar during the Spur's limbo years and how I didn't appreciate his play enough until he was gone.
But, despite being a writer with 12ish years experience, I have no idea how I'd do it as me. A lot of the skills transfer over but not all of them. Trying to decide if its worth it.
I've definitely felt this change and I think its part of the reason I've started falling out of love with Basketball to some extent over the past few years - even as someone who has consumed a lot of basketball and sports 'content' for the better part of my entire life now, its hard to find things that you connect with. Maybe thats just getting older, but alot of it is just swallowed up in being over commodified or obscured - much like the sport itself is.
when I started working at a magazine in 1994, I didn't have Internet access and there was no texting. I had to call every source on the phone. It took a certain courage and energy, like being a door to door salesperson. I think it favored people with a certain personality type, and language skills, so more voices were excluded...with that exclusion, there also wasn't bot or AI created content. I can't remember what my point was!
Well written.
Thanks for this one, Katie. You talk through and explore so many thoughts that run through my head these days, especially with regards to writing in an exploratory manner, and the temptation to bend towards Content. Water to share this with my friends, and to bounce our ideas off each other.
So good. “It takes too long on either end.” This is the thing: having the time and space to actually write. I try (and have lately failed) to get just one essay out each month. As a non-writer who likes writing, it’s tough to squeeze in this hobby (I think I am also probably really inefficient and spend way too long thinking about thinking) but still having actual writers paid to have that time is important or we’ll end up with even more atomized one offs as people come and go and then, like, 25 people who work at the New Yorker, and nothing in between.
Phenomenal work as always, Katie.
What’s your thoughts on WHY these former, now dissolved publications (who, mind you, were full of written artistry) went away? Do we crave Content more than we do art now? Have we be conditioned by social media to doom scroll through half-hearted, generic matter-of-factness?
Is it a generational gap? Etc etc etc., not to ramble.
So many directions to take this, which is lovely.
The time element – things taking "too long on either end" – is massive, I think. And it's not just the writing. Like, getting the juice to write things from a different POV, to bring together multiple interests and reference points, to learn how to mix all that together into a distinctive voice/tone/whatever takes years.
Who has the time and space to develop that? In public? (The answer, same as it always was, is the rich or the patroned. But still.)
Even people like Bill Simmons, who's imitated to death now, was once novel because of his voice and pop-culture inserts. He had the time to work that out and to build up the catalogue of media from which to draw.
That stuff takes time. And, if time's short, writers and media companies tend to fall back on patterns. Hot take, trade machine, embed tweets, 4 dudes on the podcast.
So few people break through that and offer something new. I feel like Shea Serrano did it? And I loved the POV the Spinsters podcast brought. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. (And discoverability is a whole other thing.)
I've been thinking about it myself for a while. I've toyed with the idea of writing about basketball, just for fun. Got an article noodling around about watching DeMar during the Spur's limbo years and how I didn't appreciate his play enough until he was gone.
But, despite being a writer with 12ish years experience, I have no idea how I'd do it as me. A lot of the skills transfer over but not all of them. Trying to decide if its worth it.