Is this a language thing or a culture thing?

[yvannairie]

Is it really accurate to say most people "consume" media instead of engaging with it?

(I've been confused about it for a while b/c the people who don't use their critical thinking skills while watching/reading/playing things have always been in the minority for me, and even they have usually been uncritical of things they haven't fully engaged with -- so, the same as me, I don't do the neck deep character dives into everything either.)

(It has that same suspicious sound as someone saying "sheeple" tbh)

Comments

[cassini]

[i'd like to hear the various answers on this, because i noticed i was using 'consume' rather than 'engage' and i'm sure i picked it up from tumblr, accidentally, as i was making constant efforts to not engage (ha.) with fandom in that arena because i Don't Like It. it seems to have happened regardless, and i didn't think too deeply about it until the 'backlash to the backlash' wave of people saying 'you don't consume media like an unthinking construct, don't you engage with it like a sentient being with ethics etc?!' that made me pause, and think, huh, i get you. i get what you're saying, backlash-squared folk. and i get what you're saying, yvannairie ]

[so what the funk is everyone else doing with these words? i'm going to continue to use 'consume' to speak for myself personally because i'm making some mental health humour about my status as an unthinking construct, and i link the word consume more closely with indulgence and experiential sensation than i do with mindless absorption or indeed capitalism ]

[engage implies some level of critical sparring that i used to enjoy with stuff like elder scrolls but i now reserve the mental spoons for the work arena. i consume my entertainment hedonistically and with a noncommital flippancy, whenever i can ]

[yvannairie]

My working theory is that it's a register issue brought about by the way people get into critical theory on the internet -- in mass media studies, the term "consumption of media" is value-neutral, like how "cultural appropriation" is, but when people are introduced to it through a critical, negatively-tinted context, the understanding gets muddled by the "common sense" understanding of the word. "Consumption" brings to mind digestion -- you cannot decide what nutrients you take in from the food you put into your mouth, so you have to be critical of what you eat in the first place -- even though consumption of media doesn't imply that you cannot affect what message you take away.

Similarly to the consumption vs engagement thing, I've seen people try to distinguish between cultural appropriation and "cultural drag", so that people can have a value-neutral and a judgemental word for the same thing.