#anyone remember Blood Ocean from Metalocalypse? Thats entertainment without writing

[nebuloracle]

Writing is one of the oldest art forms. Its impact on humanity is almost as monumental as oral history and mythology. However, writing alone, won't ever measure up to anything else in the modern day. It has its place, and people still enjoy it as its own art form, but it's hard to sell a wider crowd on the idea of reading as a form of entertainment, because, as you've put it, an image of anything stimulates the mind more readily and intensely than simply reading. I have something close to aphantasia. Not only is it hard to imagine what I read, but I realize it affects my writing as well. Despite it all, without writing, there's little meaning, substance, or intent behind a piece of art.

The simplest writing can imbue integral and structural meaning into an image, a song, a game, anything. And likewise, image, music, voice, etc, can imbue a sense of deepened immersion to a piece of writing (something that helps engage people who can't imagine as vividly as others.)

Even Disco Elysium started as a book. How popular was Sacred and Terrible Air though before it was expanded into a game, though? Hardly!

... Nevermind the fact that it was written in Estonian. Even translated, I doubt the book would have done numbers on its own. That's just the nature of the entertainment beast—not the industry, but the way an audience desires to be engaged and entertained.

We writers are at a disadvantage alone, but without us, most modern entertainment would fail to hold itself upright.

The Problem With Being A Writer On Social Media...

...is that pictures will always win. A picture of an empty toilet paper roll will inevitably be more popular online than whatever amazing thing you've written, because reading takes slightly more effort than moving your thumb to click a heart.