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Nobody wants to sit their asses on an overwhelming display of words. You have less than 10 seconds to exit this tab… unless.
We now have an attention span shorter than a goldfish — 8 seconds. I have tried my hardest to situate my brain on a provocative article by The New Yorker. Apparently, I’m much more distracted than a goldfish. I close my browser, instinctively open my Instagram and BAM! It’s a whole different house party. A gathering of wanderlusts, entrepreneurs, models, make up artists, influencers, and fandoms, all categorized in pictures. Crash the ubiquitous meme parties — where anyone can be funny or cultured or woke upon flashing witty pop cultural or political references in a few words or less. And if the night’s young, Tiktok’s not your ordinary dance party: moving pictures (its etymology is an onomatopoeia for a ticking clock, representing how short the videos are) where anybody can be a dancer. We are so captivated by instant visual aesthetic, not to mention, we can be our own visual aesthetic.
Nobody wants to read paragraphs anymore.
On a surface level, who cares anyway? But as the Tiktokers are happily jiving, the Instagrammers are painfully pouting, and the memers are — er — happily memeing, there sits us who struggle to jive their thoughts, pouting in worry, because memes aren’t enough to capture the messages we wish to deliver. We run with coffee in our bloodstream, pounding our heads to get the words out, unsure if a penny even comes in return. Now, our bubble of uncertainty isn’t popping any sooner. Do our words even come across? Do people even bother to read nowadays? Excellent writing is not enough when you do not have readers to agree with how excellent your writing is.
But here we are, trying our luck, digitizing our words.
We journalists have been swimming in survival, diving into visual aesthetic. The New York Times have made their essays shorter, with visually appealing animation and very personal narrations. Vox is your 5–10 minute moving History/Social Science textbook, if you’re wondering how 97 years of British colonial rule shaped Hong Kong. Buzzfeed has learned to list their vegetables, categorizing their content in the form of lists. (Build your fashion sense in 41 tips!) Slowly, the paragraphs have shortened ‘till all you need is few words, ‘till a singular imagery can translate.
Our minds are so obsessed in decoding imagery, too lazy to comprehend paragraphs. We happily nourish ourselves with data — quantities, characters, and symbols are enough to connote. Hitting the “Like” button is preferable than saying, “You outfit is lovely, and your face looks fresh and happy!” I can just follow your Spotify playlist instead of saying “Hey, we’ve got the same taste in music.” (Writing these translations actually cringed the hell out of me — oh wait, I could just use this: 🥴). While we, the word vomit fanatics and dependents (for money) may have graded our lenses under strong visual taste, mind you. There is nothing more powerful than the intrinsic value of words. You need not to complicate yourself on color grading, as words can translate to different colors that unpack a variety of emotions. Words itself are aesthetic, without the need to move it to the right side of the frame, or to set it jerking repeatedly. Words don’t need images to make you fall in love, tremble in anger, spit out bitterness, slam in dissent, or wander in mystery. Words are magical in its banality.
Again, words are magical in its banality.
Languages may die, slang may stop being cool, and poems may take less space on a page, but words are infinite. Words unlock words unlock words unlock words unlock words. Not everyone can decode visual technology — sometimes because their brain’s stimulated to think differently, or they simply don’t have the resources to do so. The risk of making words endangered is endangering our capacity to understand everyone, especially those who aren’t blessed enough to explore in the wonders of Sillicon Valley.
Fine, The New Yorker, despite the financial threat, you’re still at a triumph. Its us, the impatient and midget-minded, who feel like winning with all our followers and sharers; but we’re in defeat every second we lose attention. By all means, take our money.
