Literally 2 Cents About Content!

Alex and Liz
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Literally 2 Cents About Content! is a podcast about content mills and the broader concept of labeling all creative work ”content.” Why do we call everything anyone produces ”content”? How does this ”content” frame affect us as content consumers? And what types of conditions do content creators labor under? Check out Liz’s website at https://lizmakesstuff.com and Alex’s site at www.content-lab.agency

  1. 08/16/2025

    David Golumbia retrospective, part 1: "Is Wario cyberlibertarian?"

    Alex and Liz discuss only some of the works of linguist, philosopher, and academic David Golumbia, including:  The Cultural Logic of Computation (2009) The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism (2016) Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology (2024) Technology and Silicon Valley are often associated with left-leaning politics. Still, various causes (SOPA/PIPA discourse, internet publication and copyright discourse, digital innovation) have roots in libertarian or conservative and reactionary narratives. Golumbia’s work shows that it’s difficult (read: impossible) to divorce reactionary values from Silicon Valley and its staunchest supporters. Reading list: The Great White Robot God A declaration of the independence of cyberspace The Language of Science and the Science of Language: Chomsky's Cartesianism

    1h 37m

  2. 03/05/2025

    An insult to dumpsters and fires

    Alex and Liz talk about the Glassdoor reviews of their old employer, touch upon the depravity of working for an SEO content mill, and compare monopoly and monopsony. The classic Popula article about working at this very content mill. What is monopsony? Liz's site Alex's blog

    1h 19m

  3. 10/18/2024

    Book club: Kate Manne's "Unshrinking"

    Alex and Liz take a look at Kate Manne's 2024 book, Unshrinking: How to face fatphobia. Along the way, they examine some of the key assumptions that drive widespread fatphobia in contemporary society, what the point of weight loss is supposed to be, the history of hazardous weight-loss treatments, and how Manne's book intersects with other publications by Ragen Chastain, Abigail C. Saguy, Paul Campos, and Paul Ernsberger. Ragen Chastain on weight loss as a prescription Chastain on how weight-loss studies are often deliberately misleading Abigail C. Saguy's book. Paul Campos' book and blog. 1989 debate over whether "obesity" is hazardous, with Paul Ernsberger taking the "negative" side. Ernsberger's earlier catalog of hazardous "obesity" treatments.

    1h 26m

  4. 06/20/2024

    Unspoiled paradise of streaming content

    Liz and Alex talk about streaming, why its business model is so lousy compared to cable, the social aspects of watching TV vs the isolation of streaming, how sports holds linear TV together, and why it feels more sustainable to support individual creators than to pay for a bundle. Liz's website Alex's blog How the Criterion Channel works The failed promise of binge TV The life and death of Hollywood

    1h 24m

  5. 03/24/2024

    Our most hated "content" words

    Liz and Alex lay into their most despised words from the content mill industry, from "dynamic content" and "content management system" to "optimize" and "authentic." Also covered: video game DLC (that's "downloadable content," remember!), store brand sodas, and the 1990s web. Liz's site Alex's blog The “and yet you participate in society” cartoon Mastodon post on “data” Rob Horning blog

    1h 27m

  6. 01/05/2024

    A funny thing happened on the way to the AI forum

    Alex and Liz dig their claws into "AI," this time focusing on some recent hype-y conferences Liz attended in Chicago and Las Vegas. We also look at cyberlibertarianism, the difficulties that LLMs have with ambiguity (and why making them better at this could paradoxically make them worse overall), the costs associated with producing cutting-edge work, and the embedded biases of AI. Alex's blog Liz's site We don't need generative AI  At least the robber barons built things  Is a neural network like a pocket calculator? “AI” and epistemic injustice  Chatbot revolution?

    1h 19m

  7. 09/28/2023

    Digital content in the analog world: Snackable ideas while engaging with our lunch

    Alex and Liz talk about what really makes digital content different from physical and analog equivalents, and what distinctive ideological concepts—"everything's binary, monopolies are good, technology itself is the agent, users should be treated with hostility"— are uniquely embodied by it. And even though everything digital seems ethereal and immaterial, it requires tremendous amounts of real resources—water, electricity, space—behind the scenes. We also dive into Leo Marx's famous "Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept" essay, discuss Martin Scorsese's dislike of Marvel (and what it says about "content"), how the Hollywood strikes were spurred by the content-ization of movies and TV, and spew some weird facts about vinyl records. Scorsese pieces: NYT (2019), GQ (2023) My old "content"pieces: A spin on Marx's piece and the 5 core assumptions of "content" as a term. Emma Thompson thinks "content" is a rude term.

    1h 35m

  8. 09/03/2023

    The artificial intelligence is coming from inside the house

    Alex and Liz talk about the hottest topic out there—"AI," or "artificial intelligence" (quotes because we're a little skeptical of it being in any way "intelligent"), with a look at some recent essays that explore whether "AI" is agent or tool, its problematic uses in higher education, why Silicon Valley is so intent on building things ("AI" or otherwise) that they'd read about or seen in sci-fi (while also of course acting as if books, films, and other artistic endeavors are worthless, just like the rest of the humanities), and how Jonny Quest predicted the Apple Watch in 1964. Alex's recent blog post on "the economy." Liz's website. Check out Liz's book at Barnes & Noble. Rob Horning's essay, Pro tools. The Emily Bender profile in New York magazine. The empty brain.

    1h 24m
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Ratings & Reviews

5
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3 Ratings

About

Literally 2 Cents About Content! is a podcast about content mills and the broader concept of labeling all creative work ”content.” Why do we call everything anyone produces ”content”? How does this ”content” frame affect us as content consumers? And what types of conditions do content creators labor under? Check out Liz’s website at https://lizmakesstuff.com and Alex’s site at www.content-lab.agency

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