Welcome to Engagement Farm

It's all free, as far as you know.

Image unironically created using a ChatGPT prompt.

Welcome to Engagement Farm! We’re glad to see so many of you here!

I’ll be your tour guide today as we take a look around the grounds.

For those unfamiliar with how Engagement Farm works, it’s sort of like an orchard with many different varieties of apples.

The only difference is that here we farm for engagement. We want your traffic. We would absolutely love it if you liked and subscribed.

As we move around, feel free to grab anything you want. The best part, just like the signs say all around here: It’s all free! (As far as you know).

Are there any questions before we start? Yes, you up front.

Q: Is this an organic engagement farm?

A: Oh, good question. No, this is not an organic engagement farm. We tried that, but we found that we could harvest a lot more engagement if we grew it by any means necessary.

And really, what we have found is that organic is just an illusion. I’ll bring you back to the apple example: You can buy organic apples at the grocery store and you can also buy apples that weren’t grown organically. Can you really tell the difference?

The algorithm can’t, amirite?

Engagement farming is just like if it was organic, except it’s not. Does that make sense? OK, any more questions?

Q: Why does the sign say “It’s free,” but then (as far as you know) is in parentheses?

A: It does? That doesn’t sound like something we would do. Anyway, let’s begin our tour.

Over here we have our diabolical contrarians. Aren’t they terrific? They spend day and night online, having some of the absolute worst opinions, and they make sure you know about it.

Do they actually believe the things they are saying? Who knows!? Who cares!? They don’t rack up “likes,” but oh the replies! People can’t resist! Smart people can’t wait to line up and punch down on them, but that just gives them more power.

Let’s take a peek at one of them in action: Oh, look! He’s just finished a video asserting that Lamar Jackson isn’t even a top 10 quarterback in the NFL.

Feel free to stop and engage! Remember, it’s all free (as far as you know).

What’s that? I did what again? I have no recollection of doing that.

Let’s keep moving … Oh now these guys are really killing it lately. They’re kind of like a specific niche of the diabolical contrarians: the bogus math problem warriors.

It’s so simple! They challenge folks to a math problem that has a seemingly obvious answer. And either there are multiple interpretations of what the answer could be, or it’s a trick question, or they provide the wrong answer and just make people mad. Sometimes all three!

You try not arguing about the correct answer to 3 plus 3 divided by 3 times 3 minus 3.

Where does the time go? Exactly! We must move on.

Oh now these ladies (sometimes guys, but who are we kidding) occupy a very basic but important part of our farm. For lack of a better term, we call them hot people doing normal things.

Golfing. Playing video games. Just walking down the street. Speaking into the camera and saying vaguely flirty things? They can do it all.

What a way to make a living!

I’m not supposed to say this, but … (leans in close) … I wish everyone on the farm could be more like them.

(Basketball almost hits the tour guide in the face).

Guys! Careful!

I guess that’s a good transition to our next group: Our trick shot viral video specialists.

This is a great example of that question earlier about organic engagement farming. Back in earlier times, we discovered that people LOVE watching videos of amazing things: from half-court buzzer-beaters in basketball to random but unpredictable things that just happened to be caught on camera.

So we brought that idea to the farm, where we can simply make those moments! These guys you see right now have been filming for three days trying to make a seemingly impossible bank shot off five different objects with a basketball. What you just watched a few moments ago was failed attempt number 1,242. Maybe 1,243 will be the one that goes through the hoop. It might take 3,000. But the only thing almost everyone will see is the one that went in!

We had one group that spent 44 days and more than 15,000 attempts trying to smash a ping-pong ball so hard and so accurately that it stuck between … for lack of a better term … one gentleman’s butt cheeks. When they finally got it, they were so proud. We were all so proud. It was one of our most popular videos.

Yes, you have your hand up.

Q: But that’s not really fair, is it? It’s like an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters eventually completing the entire works of Shakespeare. Only we think the infinite is the singular.

A: It’s still Shakespeare in the end, isn’t it?

Moving on quickly! Oh, these folks over here … I hate to say … well, if we are proud of our trick shot viral video specialists … we are not so proud of this group. But as we say around here, engagement is engagement!

And as I should remind you, it’s all free (as far as you know).

Q: Why do you keep saying that? That’s the third time!

A: I have no idea what you are talking about.

Anyway, like I said, we’re not exactly trying to hide our meme thieves, but there’s a reason they can be hard to find.

Have you ever watched something and thought, “I feel like I’ve seen this before?” There’s a good chance that’s a meme thief at work. They take things that have already been popular on the Internet and, um, repurpose them for their own gain.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Isn’t that just stealing? But I want you to consider this: Sometimes they are repurposing content that has already been repurposed before! When you think of it that way, who can really say where the blame lies.

Sometimes they get yelled at regardless, but it happens in the comments. And you know what those are? Engagement! Everybody wins! Mostly!

Anyway, it’s all free (as far as you know), which is something I don’t think I have ever said.

Let’s not think too much about it because look over there! It’s our political panderers, and oh they are BUSY right now.

They are actually working as a team with the 24-7 alarmists for the time being, which might be forever.

What’s interesting is (leaning in a little) they don’t actually think they are part of Engagement Farm.

They insist that all of what they produce is organic, and we don’t really have the heart to tell them otherwise.

The gentleman right over there has already posted 17 things just today that he has labeled “the worst thing that has ever happened.”

He has a base of dedicated readers who live to be outraged and can’t wait to be told about all the terrible things that he thinks are happening.

The woman next to him just deleted a post about immigration because it wasn’t inflammatory enough and wasn’t getting the number of “likes” that she wanted.

Do they really believe what they are saying?

Maybe! Sometimes! But it doesn’t matter!

Oh and speaking of “is it real?” let’s go next to one of our newest features on the farm, mass-produced AI content.

Did you know that artificial intelligence can create a thousand mediocre pieces of content in the time that it takes a human to make one pretty good one?

Just tell it to do something, and it does. An essay about George Washington. A painting of two ducks fighting in outer space. Even a portrait of Engagement Farm. It’s all so easy! And plausibly decent! Plus there is so much of it that even if a lot of it underperforms, the scale ensures it succeeds.

Aren’t we all so f- … oh, that’s not the F word I was looking for … fortunate! That’s it. Fortunate!

Oh, and look the tour is almost over. The final section of the farm over here is where three different groups hang out together.

First there are the outlandish storytellers. At first we called this group “Instagram and Threads,” but after the cease and desist we changed it.

But the content hasn’t changed, which is terrific.

Whether it’s a long video or never-ending string of words describing someone’s deeply personal (and quite possibly entirely made up) experience, these storytellers have a knack for connecting with an audience that would rather do anything aside from thinking about their own problems.

I’m sure you can relate! And look next to them at the reply guys. Aren’t they terrific, just typing away? They boost their own engagement by ceaselessly engaging with other people’s popular content.

It’s a good way to break in, but then again so is being one of our doomscroll interrupters. They provide an invaluable service on the farm by making sure people don’t feel too bad about themselves.

They might post something like, “I heard an asteroid is going to hit the earth in 8 years and for me that’s not soon enough, but if you are feeling a sense of existential dread like me here is a video of a golden retriever spooning with a baby goat.”

That’s a pretty long emotional journey in such a short time, but we all know where it beautifully ends: engagement!

And that, too, is where this tour ends.

I’m so glad we got to spend this time together today. Feel free to spend as much time as you would like with as many different groups you have seen at Engagement Farm.

Can you believe all of this is free (as far as you know)?

Almost the entire group dispersed to the various corners of the farm, except for one man. He had his phone out, but he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. So he put it back in his pocket and spoke up.

Q: Can you finally tell me why you keep saying “it’s all free (as far as you know)?”

The tour guide looked at him and folded her arms.

“You know better than to ask me that. First of all you wouldn’t like the answer and second of all I have never said that.”

Q: I think I would like to leave the farm. Which way is the exit?

“Well … there is a giant button you can push, pretty close to where you came in. That will get you out of here. But you will also have a very hard time visiting the organic farm if you push it. Or doing simple everyday tasks. Or communicating with friends and loved ones. Or generally functioning in this life that has been constructed.

He thought for a minute, contemplating the totality of all that she had said. Then he started walking.

“Where are you going?”

I’m heading toward the entrance and that button you talked about.

I decided don’t really want any of this (as far as you know).