Platform Vultures
How We Traded Our Art & Humanity for Metrics
A TikToker's hands shake as she checks if her tears are symmetrical enough for maximum engagement. The first video about her business dying only hit 2K views.
Her analytics show sad smiles perform better than ugly crying. She deletes take 22, reapplies her mascara, and practices looking authentically devastated. A notification pops up… her business death just crossed 100K.
The algorithm finally found her grief marketable.
Welcome to the fucking content lottery.1
And Substack's $25K bounty is about to land in some creator's account.2
Watch their cursor hover over the "accept payment" button. Watch them swallow hard as they read the contract's fine print, calculating exactly how many pieces of their authenticity they can sell before there's nothing left. Their platform independence comes with a new cage and a better view.
Tomorrow they'll write about digital freedom while testing which performs better in their newsletter.
And then, right on cue...
In Meta's perfect offices, Zuckerberg discovered principles in TikTok's blood.
Another content moderator packs their desk, replaced by an AI that doesn't need therapy after watching humanity's darkest hits on repeat. Their severance package includes a pre-written LinkedIn post about "exciting new opportunities."
I know because I wrote copy and templates like this.
Look what we've become.
An influencer rehearses her "authentic morning routine" for the eighth time.Her real routine. Panic attacks and prescription bottles tested poorly with sponsors.
She fixes her smile in the mirror, practices looking blessed not broken. Between takes, she teaches a masterclass on "being your authentic self online."
The irony tastes like bile in her throat.
LinkedIn's turned into a digital snuff film. A thought leader posts inspirational stories about firing his team, watching his engagement spike with each carefully crafted lie.
He leads seminars on "authentic leadership" from his beach house, paid for by teaching others how to monetize their mediocrity. Every post a new way to package sociopathy as success.3
Your favorite creator stares at their analytics. A decade of work vanishing because Google's AI decided their content wasn't "brand suitable." Tomorrow they'll make a video about pivoting to Shorts, their voice breaking as they explain why cutting their art into 60-second chunks is actually creative freedom.
TikTok cracked the dopamine code, and now every platform wants your vertical soul.4
YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, LinkedIn...Threads? They're not even pretending to be original anymore. Just photocopying addiction strategies while holding a gun to your metrics.
I've watched writers stop writing because their short-form content gets more engagement. Seen photographers add more filters until reality tests better with focus groups. Heard musicians slice their symphonies into dopamine-friendly chunks because algorithms can't monetize patience.
That's what these platforms do. They don't just kill creativity. They erase your memory of what it felt like to create without permission.
Artists forget how to make art that doesn't beg for validation. Writers lose the ability to string words together without checking if they're trending. Musicians can't hear music over the sound of their analytics.
We're not just losing art. We're losing the memory of what it meant to be human. To create because your soul would burst if you didn't. To tell stories because stories are how we survive, not because they tested well with the algorithm.
Every creator becomes a number. Every story becomes content. Every human moment gets processed, packaged, and stripped of what made it real in the first place.
We're not just dying. We're forgetting we were ever alive.
And these tech vultures know it. Every notification is their desperate heartbeat. Every push for engagement their gasping breath. They need your content to survive. Without your pain, your joy, your carefully filtered existence, they're just empty servers humming in dark rooms.
But real freedom…and perhaps art?
It's not in their fucking bounties or algorithms. It's in the creator who stopped checking metrics and remembered what art felt like before it needed permission to exist. The writer who deleted their social profiles and found their voice again in the silence. The artist who burned their platform presence and felt their spine crack back into place.
They're out there, making work that doesn't beg for likes to prove it's alive while you're still here, drowning in notifications, measuring your worth in metrics, trying to convince yourself this is what success feels like.
I know because I built a lot of these cages. And now I'm watching us forget what it meant to be human before we became metrics.
But the real cost isn't in dropped views or failed posts.
It's in forgetting how to tell stories that matter. It's in losing the ability to create without permission. It's in becoming content instead of staying human.
The platforms didn't just kill creativity.
They made us forget we were ever creative in the first place.
And now they're calling it a rescue.
Pure rumors about the TikTok buyout. China won't even dignify it with speculation. I'm calling it a lottery because we all know how this ends. That’s how vultures thrive.
Substack claims this isn't about buying audience. Their public numbers show they take 10% of all creator earnings. Do the math on how much they expect to make off each "rescued" creator.
Authentic became a marketing buzzword in 2023. The more platforms pushed for authenticity, the more staged it became. The ultimate platform paradox.
Everyone's copying everyone while claiming innovation. The ouroboros of content.
I read about a Christian essayist who just posted stuff and NEVER checked the metrics. She just threw it into the ether. Can't for the life me remember her name. She became a massive hit and wasn't even aware of it.
That seems like the only sane way to interact with these platforms.
Actually one of the best pieces I’ve read in a long while. You’ve put my thoughts into words. I feel like this on Substack even, it’s already gamed from the jump. Even “opposition” or fringe isn’t real - it’s like Pepsi vs. coke. No one is the real good guy - we just have someone who plays Superman and someone who plays the villain. It’s all controlled, to break through with original, unique content is inherently nearly impossible unless you force it into reality / common consciousness through mass marketing aka money.
Rarely I do see or find something organically of true interest and merit, like yourself. Yet, it’s almost an honor or badge to not be a winner on an internet rigged for fakes and fools. Not sure if that’s just my cynicism and zero subscribers talking, but artifice seems to succeed over true art.