An excerpt from "The Epidemic of Islamic Consumerism" on social media

"Nothing exemplifies the consumerist nature of social media than concepts like ‘content’ and ‘content creators’. What is ‘content’? It’s literally filler for people to consume with their minds. Anything that will translate into the intermediary currencies of likes, follows and shares that the content creator can exchange into dollars.

Consumerism in social media as a whole – irrespective of the Muslim context – is a problem in itself. Data has become a commodity, to the point that we see the advent of the ‘influencer’ and ‘junk content’ – i.e. the production & consumption of data for its mere entry into our brains irrespective of its purpose, utility and benefit. It’s the pizza, burgers and chips of internet content. Fun once in a while, but if you consume them too often they’ll cause your insides to rot.

Islamic ‘content’ online is not too dissimilar. Muslim social media is filled with ‘content creators’. Even young men engaged in da’wah online have unashamedly labeled themselves as content creators on occasion."

Full essay: