Not to do content, but I have become something of a voracious consumer of free advice. Whenever it appears, I take it in almost instinctively. But I remember once hearing someone I respected remark, almost casually, that even free advice is not really free. If it’s reading, I have to be more focused and avoid shallow consumption. What they meant is that free “advise” carries something with it, expectations, assumptions, and sometimes even some silent cost that you only know of when and only when you read in between the lines.
It is a free advice day indeed, and I try my best to minimise the lines, just so you don’t have to do as much work as I did. But again, still this starting “advise” may easily pass over our heads if we do not do the work of decoding the meaning. That has always been the case with many things in life. I have never had it easy in that regard by the way. Much of what I have learned has come from having to decode meaning out of texts, out of statements, and out of the silent implications hidden between the lines.
Even growing up, and later in building businesses and watching some of them fall, and die, the lesson remained the same. Nothing important ever announces itself plainly to us. You learn to read between the lines. You learn to decode meaning from situations, from failures, and from small remarks that appear insignificant at first. Every time in life you must read between the lines.
Tell this to my daughters as they go through ‘meee,’ ‘Talking Tom’ or ‘Masha and the bear’ shorts on You Tube, you will be hit with a “mate, stop joking, be straightforward.” Reading in between the lines for them is such a big joke, that even myself who jokes more often than necessary can’t comprehend that joke.
Sometimes the clearest example appears in something as simple as this humour though. Take the most memorable joke of them all in your case. It is always a joke on the surface. People laugh and move on. But if you read between the lines, there is usually some truth sitting quietly underneath it. The joke is not only a joke. It is also a way of saying something that might otherwise be said too directly.
That same decoding is necessary today when people talk about new ideas (or new knowledge) and social media. Many people are concerned about enshittification. Others are concerned about gatekeeping. And many among these others are concerned that, in the end, there is no open-mindedness on the other side of these platforms. They feel that the ideas they conceive are suppressed before they can reach other people, either through gatekeeping or through the mechanisms of enshittification that shape what becomes visible to these other people. The intended new-ideas readers, viewers or consumers.
Yet there is another side to this situation. Ideas do not reach people simply because they exist. If ideas are not shaped in a way that allows them to reach others, they will remain where they are. In that sense, they must pass through the same processes that people call gatekeeping or enshittification. They must find a form that can move through that same system.
This is where the idea of being in front of the ideas, as you the bearer of the new ideas, begins to appear. Someone has to lead them first. You. And this is where the conversation about individual-led media and personal intellectual property began. People speak about individual media brands, about leading one’s own ideas rather than waiting for institutions to carry them. This is where we currently are.
But this situation also raises another question. Perhaps technology has advanced so rapidly that humans themselves are becoming scrambled in their connections, right? Right! We are surrounded by tools that promise connection, yet making sense of what it means to be human within this technological environment remains a struggle. Aren’t we struggling? Right! Even forming these ideas can feel like a fight in the mind, an attempt to understand what it means to live in a world defined by rapid advancement, disruption and constant communication.
At the same time, these ideas are not meant to remain only inside one person’s mind. The purpose of thinking is also to bring other people on board, to discuss, to test, to share and to build understanding together. And to do that, communication becomes necessary. You must find ways of presenting ideas so that other people can encounter them.
This leads inevitably to social media, again. People spend enormous amounts of time there though, truth be told. They move between platforms searching for substance. Many come to platforms such as LinkedIn because they believe there might be more substance there. It is a place where professional conversation is expected to occur. Besides searching and applying for jobs!
But then another problem appears. LinkedIn may be a place where people gather, but technology itself does not allow you to capture them for long. The platform wants people to remain inside its environment. It is designed for movement, not for deep dwelling.
So, what do you do?
One response has been the rise of the short video. The sixty-second video becomes the entry point. Someone sees the video, pauses for a moment, becomes curious, and then perhaps moves from that moment of attention towards the longer form of the idea somewhere else. Mostly through an embedded link or the comments section.
That longer form might live on a personal website. It might live on a YouTube channel. It might live in essays or in other deeper discussions be it book, audio or longer videos. But the short video is then the door through which people first encounter the idea.
Another platform that once seemed to offer a space for substance was Substack. Many people believed it could become a place where writing would remain central, where longer ideas could be read without constant interruption. But even there, new developments have appeared. Substack now introduces recording studios. People can record videos, bring others into conversations, and produce media directly inside the platform.
And what happens next is predictable. Many people will use those tools not for depth, but for the same short forms that dominate everywhere else. Ironically, trivialising others’ content with depth, into content without depth. In thirty-second clips, and worse, into sixty-second fragments. Attention-catching moments designed to stop someone else for a brief instant. Just so we could go viral.
This reflects a broader change in how attention operates. Once it was said that the human attention span had fallen to fourteen seconds. Now it is often said to be eight seconds. Whether those numbers are precise is less important than the general direction. Attention is becoming shorter and more fragmented.
That is why the short form has become so powerful. Without it, many ideas never cross the first barrier of attention. Without the short video, the short clip, or the brief moment of curiosity, people may never encounter the longer work at all.
Yet at the same time, short form alone cannot sustain interest. A sixty-second video may attract a moment of attention, but it cannot carry the full weight of an idea. It cannot create the depth that makes someone return again and again.
That depth lives in the long form.
It lives in essays, books, extended discussions and thoughtful writing. It lives in places where ideas can breathe, develop and encounter other ideas over time. Long form content allows ideas to gather substance and allows readers or listeners or audiences to stay with them longer.
Thus, tension appears here. On the one hand, long form content may seem like the most important place for ideas. On the other hand, without the short form content it may be impossible to bring people across the first barrier of attention.
This is the world that we now have to navigate. Even in PPTs, we have to navigate it.
One can sit quietly believing that long form content alone is enough. Perhaps it is. But the moment you try to bring those ideas into public conversation, you encounter the realities of this technological environment. Attention must first be captured before depth can be encountered.
In this sense, short form becomes less important than it appears, and at the same time more necessary than we might wish. It becomes a tool for opening the door, even if it is not the place where the real conversation happens.
At the same time, another force shapes this environment: money. Even those who produce long form content must find ways to sustain their work. Courses appear. Books appear. Educational programmes appear. People attempt to transform their thinking into something that can support them financially, but more importantly offer value to their audiences, who are also using the same content to make money.
And this economic pressure often pulls platforms towards trivia. Content that attracts attention quickly tends to generate more revenue for the media owners. As a result, much of social media becomes filled with small fragments, entertaining distractions and easily consumable material, and ads (through ads if you like).
When trivia occupies the space between people, deeper conversations become harder to sustain.
And so, the situation becomes more complicated than it once was. Technology has made communication easier than ever before, yet understanding and meaningful discussion often require greater effort.
Perhaps in the end this is simply another version of an old pattern. Systems, algorithms and technologies change, but human attention, curiosity and meaning continue to move through them in familiar ways.
Which brings us back to the beginning.
It may indeed be a free advice day.
But like many things that appear simple on the surface, the meaning might be hader to come by, except for those who are willing to read up to between the lines. Between the lines being the end of this essay!
Shika moyo, shika roho, Je m’appelle Miltone!
Goodbye, and may you have your best week so far!
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