"Hi Chat! - Reclaiming the Media Content Creator Role

I am on the computer a lot. I check emails and WhatsApp. I actively delete LinkedIn’s relentless notifications, ignore iCloud storage warnings, and navigate YouTube algorithms that somehow always know exactly what I am thinking. I just swapped Zoom Pro for Google Business Workspace, only to find friends who refuse to use it—likely because of data privacy concerns, though I am not entirely sure what that means on a systemic level.

I am GenX. I remember the ZX81, the Commodore 64, and the hassle of pulling my first mobile phone out of the rubbish bin two minutes after throwing it there in a fit of rage.

But since then, the entire architecture of how we are informed has mutated. I used to sell encyclopaedias door-to-door; information came from physical books or a teacher’s mouth. Today, it comes from algorithms and AI. As a result, I am losing the capacity to think critically; instead, I simply regurgitate "facts" that align with my emotional attachments. The psycho-technology deployed by profit-focused entities to keep me passively consuming, fighting, or unhealthy is staggering. The systemic effects are staring me in the face—mental health crises, sugar-saturated food systems, local gift economies exploited by corporate charities—yet they have become so familiar I mistake them for "normal."

So, what is the role of the Regenerative Media Content Creator in this machine?

Carol Sanford notes that without a coherent social purpose, the media industry just pumps out more content on a faster cycle with less beneficial result—acting as a pollutant. As a regenerative practitioner, if I am just adding more "good stories" to this polluted stream, I am still caught in the mechanical trance. I need to look closely at the essence triad of this role: Illuminate Systemic Effects, Discern Truth, and Make Hope Possible.

1. Illuminate Systemic Effects: The core process is not just reporting what is happening, but asking, "How did we get here?". It requires an assembling of a systemic picture of the underlying patterns evolving or arresting local ecologies. The local Bank Manager is now an app, but word-of-mouth still holds weight in some communities. How do I use media to illuminate these invisible shifts?

2. Discern Truth: Truth is not a static list of objective facts. It is the subjective pursuit of ever-expanding ways of seeing, looking at what I can observe from multiple perspectives. As content creators, and I am acknowledging I am when when I comment on a post, my job is not to hand the viewers a syllabus or a two-dimensional story, but to offer insights, images, and Socratic questions that help them develop their own discernment.

3. Make Hope Possible: Hope dies in me when I see no way out. The current media environment deflates agency, leading to passivity or resentment. Both are seen as profitable. Could my role be to stimulate active imagination and will? How would I do this? I am predominantly a consumer, not a creator. What needs waking up? My agency? In all this I see I need to find a way to move beyond the "knowledge transfer" approach—just dropping seeds and hoping they grow—and instead using media to actively provoke the developmental journey of the viewer.

Are you using your platforms to simply share information, or are you designing interventions that disrupt the mechanical trance and generate the capacity for real, localised agency? I would love to hear how you are holding this friction in your own practice.

see you at a campfire,

Ākāśaḍāka