Why is everybody on LinkedIn claiming to be an entrepreneur, or intending to be one? Why cannot we take pride in the simple fact of being a worker? If entrepreneurship is not my passion, does that make me deficient in some way?

Copywriting involves, among other things, increasing brand awareness. Every corporation, big or small, wants to increase market share. Good copywriting is persuasive, whether it is business to customer or business-to-business. This kind of writing is great, and pays the bills. If this kind of entrepreneurship is your passion, then congratulations and best of luck to you.

I am a copywriter, but it is not my passion. No, I do not want to be an entrepreneur. Why not? Entrepreneurship consists of activity that is ultimately unfulfilling and emotionally draining – no offence to entrepreneurs and copywriters out there.

Entrepreneurship is all well and good, and if that is your passion, go for it. I do not find a sense of fulfilment in entrepreneurship, but in writing with meaning.

Persuasive writing for business

Please do not misunderstand – good copywriting is a necessary component of any business. What is an example of persuasive writing? Omsom. The latter is an Asian food restaurant business, and their web page contains great copywriting.

Leveraging their refugee background, the two sisters who run the business explain their commitment to cooking, which they learned growing up in their mother’s kitchen. Fleeing their native Vietnam, the Pham sisters have made a new ‘Phamily’ in the US. They have updated the traditional refugees-rags-to-riches story.

The people responsible for Omsom’s web page copy have done a fantastic job. It is a twist on the old story of penniless refugees becoming prosperous in their adopted homeland. Good copywriting will ensure repeat customers. I enjoy copywriting, but it is a job, not a method of achieving social connections.

I still describe myself as a writer. Using that word to describe my occupation feels archaic, a remnant from a bygone era. I should be using the term ‘content creator’. Writers belong to the early twentieth century and use a quill pen; today, content creators are the rage.

What is a content creator?

Since the rise of the internet, digital material is created for the intent of circulation. The instructional guides for using a software platform, the novels of George Orwell, and the videos of monkeys smelling their own fingers are all available for circulation. Clicks and likes have become ends in themselves. Clickbait has replaced cultural capital in big tech’s drive to turn the virtual crowd into individual consumers.

Public service internet

As a blog writer, I try to think of important topics, subjects which I feel are underreported. Yes, I use the internet to find topics. No, the problem is not using algorithms to search for news and long form content. The problem is that we have allowed big tech companies – Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple – to monopolise the internet space and define it as a purely profit-driven mechanism.

I take notes (not on LinkedIn) about the subjects I read. The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and his appropriation by the far right; Max Stirner and his ideology of egoism and self-empowerment; the aristocratic rebellion that underpins the viewpoint of Plato’s Republic.

No employer or corporation has ever asked me to write about these topics. These subjects belong to the humanities, and cannot be monetised, even though the modern university is being steadily corporatised. The growth of social media is a mixed blessing; of course you can find the works of the great philosophers and writers, but you can also find the conspiracy theories, the misinformation and harmful content, amplified by the megaphone of the virtual crowd.

The deleterious impacts of social media are only just beginning to be understood. The increase in depression, anxiety, isolation in the age of social media connection may seem counterintuitive. Surely we are all better interconnected because of TikTok, Snapchat and the like? Actually, we are all consumers, and digital advertising focuses on the click, the brand name, the shallow engagement.

The above-mentioned philosophers are from the past, to be sure. Are they obsolete? By no means. Understanding the heavyweights of the past is essential if we are to comprehend our current predicament. I enjoy copywriting, but it is the humanities (or social sciences) that make me feel connected.

Not just consumers in a marketplace

There is no shortage of practical proposals to open up the internet as a public service broadcaster. The digital commons is far from just a utopian fantasy; treating the digital space as public infrastructure reduces the harms visited upon the public by the commercialised monopoly that we now confront. Indeed, back in 1922, when a little broadcaster called the BBC was founded, it was envisioned as a public pulpit, dedicated to education, information, cultural diversity as well as entertainment.

The new media of that time – radio and television – opened up new audiences, new collectives of people ready to receive messages and content. Many of the debates that were had then are being revisited today with the rise of social media. Let’s be realistic; the birth of the internet was not motivated by the public good, but by the ultra libertarian philosophy of the companies which evolved into the Silicon Valley behemoths we witness today.

Ironically, the Silicon Valley titans, upheld as exemplars of private industry initiatives, were actually seeded by government money and military-industrial startups. Using public money, the tech giants promote individualistic consumerism as an end in itself. Parasitising public infrastructure and turning it into a profit-maximisation business model seems to be a widespread practice, even at universities.

Please enjoy the clicking and browsing hobbyhorse that is the internet. Once in a while, get to a page, and then – stop, log off social media, and read a book.