Engagement

This poem is part of a series of poems made as part of an exercise where the reader chooses 5 words and writes a poem about them. They than exchange their 5 words with another author who has written 5 other poems, resulting in a total of 20 pieces.

The internet has a kind of currency that has transcended money itself. It doesn’t necessarily have a direct value, though many a company vie for it.

This strange currency comes in the form of engagement and can itself take many forms. In the early days of the internet, this was commonly in the form of “hits” this was before the times of web 2.0 where money wasn’t part of the equation.

Later on, as the web evolved a new type of network was formed. Gone were the forums, and the pages of yesteryear and in it’s place social media. In this new environment likes were king, and to go viral was a success. Yet still in this while some profited, it was itself a war of excellence.

Finally as with anything the companies took notice. Now things like impressions took over, with all attention focused on getting the most views. Slowly texts posts were replaced with images and then short videos and each and every second was meticulously crafted to farm eyeballs.

And with this development a new drug was born, with each swipe a new hit of dopamine but unlike many drugs before, it’s effects only last for seconds more and onto the next hit they go.