In a digital world were words are less important than the ideas they convey, the craft of writing is changing. Hell, it has changed, drastically. I’m not saying that all copywriters are becoming
keyboard mutes, I’m saying that snippets and texts and tweets and posts have replaced what would have been considered writing just five years ago. The speed of life has changed things. No one has time to read something as long as this blog post you are reading. Words are being abbreviated into wrds sentences are shortened to blrbs.
I’m not bemoaning this reality. It is just the way things are. It is no different than art directors who cannot draw. AD’s now live in an Illustrator/InDesign/Photoshop/After Effects/CS5 world of electronic hues and strokes. Try to find a pencil or pen. You’ll find a stylus instead. Again, this is the nature of change.
I’ve heard some old schoolers complain about this onrushing future, their bitching drowned out by the roar of technology and the next release of an iPad that will write for you and a Droid that will read it back to you. The traditional media has lost it’s former advantage to banners, micro-sites, pop-ups, web videos and 54,000 other versions of things that used to come in 30-second spots or printed pages in a publication.
Who is a copywriter in a social media world? Everyone. Hell, I wrote two entire novels on Twitter last year, 140 characters at a time. I’m not defending either of those works as fine literature, but unlike Faulkner, who needed a publisher, today’s Hemingway only needs access to the Web. You can publish anything on Amazon’s Kindle for less than the cost of a Big Mac. And you can get a book about that very subject from Amazon on your Kindle.
Perhaps this is a good thing, forcing writers to think about good ideas more than just words. We have enough words in our lives already. We don’t have enough good ideas.
