Do We Have a Responsibility to Like and Subscribe?

On the relationship between content creators and consumers

Image credit: original image Notting Hill, Universal Pictures, 1999; text by Jessica Wimmer

We’re having more conversations on the internet than in person now. It’s where most of us share our ideas, creations, products, services, time, and energy more so than a physical location or seated across from another person. Whether that’s a good or not thing doesn’t negate that it’s reality. For a few years now, I’ve been someone sharing here, too. I write and create things I’m passionate about and put them on the internet in hopes that someone will see and connect with them, and therefore, with me. And for a while, that happened. Not on any grand level, but I did get likes or comments or some sort of engagement that let me know people read my work and had a relationship to it. I felt my work had an audience, and I enjoyed the conversations and relationships built from it with people I wouldn’t have otherwise met.

But the past year or two, I’ve watched engagement wither away. Strangely, the more excited about what I’m creating and the topics I’m tackling, the less engagement my work gets. For a few months, I’ve been taking it personally. Maybe what I’m creating just isn’t good. Maybe it’s not relatable. Not translating. Not interesting. Maybe I’m not good or interesting. Maybe people are tired of me. Maybe what I’m doing doesn’t matter to anyone but me. It’s a shitty thought to wrestle with.

But then I noticed some of my favorite creators, people on Substack or Instagram with huge followings, some 100K followers or more, also have abysmally low engagement. I dug into a few and noticed it’s now common for a creator with an audience of 50,000 people to only get 25 likes on a post. It made me feel a bit better that something I spent hours of time and care creating only got 6 likes, but it still made me wonder why that is given that similar creations would get over 100 likes a few years ago.

First, let’s get one thing out of the way: This whole thing of talking about likes and posts and content is cringey. I know that. I feel dumb talking about it. It leaves me with a very “go touch grass” feeling. But when I zoom out, and then I zoom out beyond even touching grass, “engagement” isn’t a dirty word. IRL, engagement is a good thing, a healthy thing. If I was sitting across from you in real life and shared something that mattered to me or showed you a piece of art I created and you said nothing, did nothing, just stared blankly or walked away, your response—or lack thereof—would be off-putting, cold, even rude.

Engagement in real life is how we tell people we see them, hear them, understand them, like them. It’s the feedback that fosters connection and community, and I’ve come to realize it’s no different on the internet, but we treat it like it is.

I’ve spoken to and read content creators that last few months who say they feel like they’re sending their words, paintings, photography, etc. into the void. While the almighty algorithm having a say in whether their work even gets shown to anyone is another conversation, their account analytics show that hundreds or even thousands of people are actually seeing their content, it’s just that no one is hitting any buttons. A few years ago, they did.

So why the change? It’s a phenomenon that breaks down, to me, into volume and values.

For one, there’s an immense amount of content out there now. Not just in the amount of content to see on a platform, but the amount of platforms to see. I myself have six or seven apps I open before even getting out of bed, which I’m not happy to admit. I have my daily habitual stroll from app to app seeing what’s going on on each one. And that’s with me being “mindful” with my content consumption. I can spend what I think is 10 minutes on TikTok swiping from video to video only to realize it was more like 30 and I’ve consumed three to five seconds of hundreds of people without meaning to or remembering any of them.

There’s so much content in our faces. It’s easy for it to start feeling impersonal. Quickly scrolling from post to post, video to video, essay to essay puts a distance between us and what we consume. We’re flying through so much, we’re not stopping long enough to really connect with hardly any of it. It’s there that the conversation between content creators and content consumers is severed. No longer am I sharing something and you’re receiving it. There’s no longer a two-way transaction. Creators now feel like they are giving to nothing. And content consumers feel they are taking from nothing. We’re not connecting with the human on the other side.

A few years ago, sharing your work on the internet felt like reaching people you wouldn’t be able to in real life. You put something out there and got something back. Give—>take—>give back. But now, it feels like there are just scrollers on the other side, people mindlessly consuming content as if they’re just watching TV. But social media isn’t TV, not in spaces where people are sharing creations and thoughts and ideas that really matter to them. It’s not the same kind of fourth wall. Sure, there’s a screen between us, but the energetic distance is not as far. Creators are reaching out, and there’s no longer a hand on the other side to touch.

Which brings me to the question: How much of a responsibility do we have on social media to engage with the content we choose to consume? Is there an ethical, social, moral, or otherwise issue with taking and not giving back? If I watch your video or read your post and I walk away with something valuable to me—be it an idea or technique or thing I want to try or feeling of being less alone or inspiration or aha moment—is it wrong for me to keep scrolling without liking, commenting, subscribing, etc. as a way to say thank you and fill your cup in return? If I stand a while enjoying a street performer’s music and throw no money in his case, is that a dick move? Maybe not once or twice, but if it’s my habit, at what point is my consumption without appreciation icky?

I know many will have responses like, “Well, I didn’t ask you to spend time on this or put it on the internet” or “Why should I have to give you anything on a free platform you chose to post on?” Fair, but also not. “I don’t owe anyone for something I didn’t ask for.” But you did. When you open an app, you’re seeking content. And that content is provided to you by a person who made it. It’s a tricky line. True, no one is forcing me to put anything on the internet. No one has to like it or make me feel good about it or support it. But if you’ve gotten something from it, why wouldn’t you want to?

I can tell you that your like, your comment, your save, your DM, your subscription mean a lot to the person on the other side of that post. Don’t forget—there is a person on the other side of that post. They get that notification, and it lets them know they were seen. In a world where so much of our sharing is now virtual, it’s a moment of connection and human reciprocity. It tells them their work matters.

It also tells algorithms their work matters. Engagement is now an incredibly important form of currency. It’s a tool. Much like in the way we put affirmations on our mirror or meditate on a word or image, we’re telling the universe what we want to attract more of in our life and our world and what we don’t. We’re shaping reality. Engagement online isn’t trivial; you’re shaping your consumption along with our culture. You’re voting with your attention. You’re telling the platform that this is what you want more of and what you find good and worthy in the world. You’re assigning value.

It’s hard, though, to determine value when we’re sliding past a hundred posts in a few minutes. That’s a hundred people who reached out to the void and were unmet. And that’s another part of this conversation—losing the attention span to connect. I’ve seen Instagram in particular go from a place where long-form content or text-heavy carousels got plenty of engagement to a space where only quick memes get the time of day. It’s impressive to see content creators take huge concepts and distill them into memes to make their work still have a chance at being digestible, but is that just what we’re doing now? Making our ideas and passions as easy and quick as possible to scroll beyond?

The mind longs for depth. The nervous system responds to connection. I know how different it feels to stop and read a full essay on Substack or a long caption on Instagram versus flying by post after post. I look at who’s behind it. I slow down. I take it in. I connect with it. I’m more likely to engage with it. I remember it. I soften. I’m present.

What are we doing when we’re making sacred offerings fit into fast, bitesize consumption, and how does it affect us to not acknowledge anyone on the other side of what we consume? Is anyone out there? Does anyone see me? Does anyone care? These aren’t small questions in “real life,” and I don’t think they’re any smaller on the internet, which is now where a lot of our real life takes place. Because at the center are humans brushing by other humans without connecting, and I want to shape a world in which people know that I see them. Silent voyeurism doesn’t create community. So, yeah, I do feel a responsibility to engage on the internet, just as I do if you were sitting across from me. You reached out, and I reached back, and this is what it means to be human.