This past weekend, I attended a cute Writers Festival in the heart of Southern Wisconsin. My morning started with my table at the local farmers market (and if you’re new here from meeting me – HI! And THANK YOU for stopping by and chatting with me!).
According to other market vendors, it was a bit slower than usual, but that was ok with me. Quality conversations were had, instead of people coming to my booth and picking up materials without talking to me. Later that afternoon, each hour had a different session. Each session was lead by award-winning local authors. Again, attendance was low and I could tell the coordinator was a bit bummed, but at the same time knowing that building event patronage takes time. I wouldn’t have known about it without being a part of a writing community on facebook, advertising that they were looking for vendors. Twenty dollars later, I’m there!
That said, we continue to be in an era of short attention spans and visually abrupt videography. The tiktoks and insta reels can show some really fun content, but also some shallow advertising, pointless videos, rage bait, done by anyone with a smartphone and 5g/Wifi. We still need quality writing. These small, locally-ran festivals are so important to communities and need continuous support. Authors are winning awards for creativity while social media awards content creators with algorithm boosts as long as they keep posting mundane actions. All that is to say, yes, they serve different audiences, however….I’m seeing younger generations going the video route rather than literacy. As an enthusiastic linguist and former educator, I’ve seen how the writing of the general public genuinely lacks creative flow (probably) because the literary arts are no longer encouraged or supported as much in schools. Having read classic books and newspaper articles from yesteryear while doing ancestry work, today’s sentence structure, creative word usage, and descriptive text all have certainly changed. Now with ChatGPT available as a very well-used tool, all of a sudden, people’s posts and blogs have more word eloquence.
I’m just saying – don’t let AI be the main source of creativity. Please don’t let social media short-form videos be the main source of entertainment. Expand your mind, expand your world with the means to create. Please support your local small businesses, creators, and festivals. It strengthens our community.