Content Utopia or Dystopia? Why Does It Feel Like We've Seen It All?

I never liked TV as a child. The whole rotating my arm pointing our middle-class remote control with weak batteries until something switched never held an appeal for my creative brain that would rather focus on making a new magazine or writing a new article.

And now - when kids tire me out or I'm just too fried to code the next version or feature of Thoxt anymore, I open my YouTube feed. Last night, I scrolled for four minutes which felt like an hour.

I finally tapped on a 12 years of marketing advice in 12 minutes video. And in the first two, it was clear that this was the same generic advice I and other YouTubers had seen countless times before. Nothing new. Has it become the new Netflix?

Netflix, Hotstar, Prime - I flicked through thumbnails like they were swatches of beige paint. New action comedy with Chris-who-remembers-his-last-name-anymore? Already know how it ends. Romantic comedy? Seen it, lived it, dated it. The latest influencer vlog? I stopped writing these bland scripts in my own influencer days.

I wasn’t looking for a masterpiece. I was just looking for something to kill my time - a movie, a show, a video that didn’t feel like a rehashed version of something I’d already consumed, rebranded with a shiny new algorithm-approved title.

It never came.

So I turned the phone off and put it down; and let the silence sit. Because for the first time, I had to ask myself: Is there actually nothing left to watch, or have we just seen too much?

We’re Drowning in Content, But Somehow, We’re Starving

Every day, millions of videos, articles, tweets, and shows are uploaded, streamed, and shoved into our feeds. When YouTube and Netflix first became popular - they promised us a content utopia. The sheer abundance of content should be thrilling, an endless buffet of stories, ideas, and entertainment.

But instead, it’s exhausting.

Because when everything is endless, nothing feels new.

We are caught in a loop of familiarity. Sequels, reboots, remakes. The same viral video formats recycled with a new face. The same dramatic news, repackaged with a fresh scandal that doesn't really feel fresh.

It’s content déjà vu - a creeping feeling that no matter where we click, we’ve already been here before.

And worse? We’re so saturated in it that even when something is original, we realize that was just limited to the title and thumbnail.

The Algorithm is Killing Our Attention Spans, and Our Taste

There was a time when discovering a movie, a song, or a writer felt like finding treasure. You had to stumble upon it - in a magazine, in a dusty record shop, in a friend’s collection of illegally downloaded films or my brother's song collection.

Now? The algorithm decides (or pretends to decide) what we like before we even know it ourselves.

No one has the right to choice anymore when it comes to content.

Netflix doesn’t just recommend a movie - it tells you it’s a 96% match for your tastes. YouTube serves up the next video before you’ve even finished the one you’re watching. Facebook or Instagram shoves 15-second clips of manufactured relatability down your throat before you can blink.

We’re no longer choosing what to watch. We’re being fed.

And like a never-ending plate of bland, mass-produced pasta, it all starts tasting the same. Which, by the way, is exactly how I feel food will taste once Teslabot Optimus starts to control our kitchens - perhaps three to five years from now.

So What Happens When Nothing Feels New?

We start craving anything different.

This is why Gen Z has declared low-quality, unhinged content as peak entertainment. At least they're unexpected. And this is why 90s camcorder aesthetics are back. Why film photographers are all talking about how movies don't feel like movies anymore but Instagram influencer grids.

It’s not about nostalgia - it’s about rebellion. A desperate pushback against the overly polished, overly predictable, algorithm-approved content machine.

Because surprise, unpredictability, and imperfection - that’s what we’re starving for.

So What’s the Answer?

Maybe the solution is to stop scrolling, to stop relying on the algorithm to spoon-feed us something exciting and create it ourselves. Do conversations with your friends feel bland too? But maybe you have that one friend with whom you always share something new or exciting? Well, share it!

Maybe it’s reading a weird book no one’s talking about, watching a random indie film from 2007, or listening to an artist before TikTok gets to them.

Because in a world where everything is available, the only way to feel something new is to stop consuming mindlessly - and start choosing deliberately.

And if that fails?

Then it’s time to turn the screen off altogether. Pick up your notebook or click that publish button on Thoxt - and simply write what you'd want to read.

#YouTubeJourney #MediaTransformation #CreativeLife #ChildhoodMemories #ContentCreation