Week 7: The Content Treadmill
Social platforms reward volume and recency over quality, turning attention into another arena where more effort buys the same reach
19 April 2027
Outline#
- algorithmic feeds as a Red Queen environment: every creator running a growth loop just to hold a flat share of the attention funnel
- the content treadmill: posting cadence scaling up as engagement-per-post scales down, visible on any creator’s own analytics dashboard
- creator burnout as the workplace-overtime story from week 5, re-platformed with a dashboard attached
- what a platform’s actual incentive structure would have to change to stop rewarding raw volume
Teaching team
- Aaron Jin — Convenor, Lecturer & Tutor; 卷王 (Involution King)