Once upon a time I turned in copy for a newsletter—on floppy disk, most likely—to Lucy, the graphic designer who sat on the other side of my cubicle wall. Then I went out for a smoke.
When I returned, she was quiet for a time, working (in Adobe PageMaker 6.0, I'm guessing).
Presently, she said, "Dave?"
"Yes, Lucy?"
"The third column, on page seven?"
"Yes, Lucy?"
"Yeah, you need to write some more shit."
Old Lucy told it like it was.
I only wish that shit producers, shit curators, shit strategists and shit marketers had Lucy's candor, and would call writers, photographers, videographers and artists what they see us as: shit creators, shit providers or just shitters.
I once wrote in a birthday card for Lucy, "It doesn't matter what I put here because you never read the copy anyway." She would have laughed, too. Except of course she never read it. Just like most of the people who profit from the "content" they condescendingly and begrudgingly pay us to create.
Carl Ally, hotheaded adman friend of my dad, was once so enraged that a client rejected his brilliant campaign pitch that he told the guy, "Why, I ought to go to your office and shit in your desk drawer."
Nowadays, Carl would be called a compelling content provider.
The important thing is that you’re still getting paid.
And if you’re paid by the turd — er, word — so much the better.
I got so tired of hoping and begging to get paid for my “content” that I became a publisher. Now I pay myself, to write my own shit.