Yesterday night I went out for dinner with some classmates, and we ended up discussing about the facts that frustrated us.
We have no idea what we are going to do after university, as students majoring in writing.
Of course we have some certain ideas, but the thing is we are not living in the ideal world. At least the city we live in would not grant our wishes. I would not say that the writing industry in Hong Kong is declined to a desperate level. After all the population aka the market in Hong Kong is quite large. What depresses us is there are only a handful of printed media that are able to sustain here. Online media got a much larger size of audience. So the printed media started imitating the online media in terms of culture and representations. It is not a bad thing until the media in Hong Kong are getting more monotonous.
Online media is the platform where the borderline of author and audience are blurred. While the producers and the consumers are the same group of people, the content would definitely be very market-driven, or actually market-dependent. Mainstream culture dominants and eliminates the subcultures. The solidarity Hong Kongers shew in Umbrella Movement also exists in popular culture. With such relatively larger population, the diversity of culture or trends is already relatively low in Hong Kong. And now the printed media started joining in to reinforce this situation. Great.
In my mind, I anticipate printed media to be more indie. To be the alternatives in society. I would say the scenery is quite disappointing when my classmates and I, as enthusiasts in writing, actually rarely consume local blogs and magazines. Creativity is slain by capitalism in our city.
Even though we don’t see ourselves doing anything too pioneering in the future, we still worry that we might not be able to sustain when our creations are not entirely following the local mainstream.
And this situation may or may not be exclusive in Hong Kong, which is my another concern.
