Media Diets, Gypsies, Print Sale
In today’s missive, musings on media consumption metaphors, praising Josef Koudelka’s photobook Gypsies, and a some personal updates.
Media Diets
The holiday season is a time when we think about self-improvement. We make resolutions to save money, tackle long-ignored projects, and get organized. At the top of many lists, though, are resolutions aimed at improving physical health—dieting, exercising, and losing weight. We think about starting gym memberships, eating better, and staying active.
This focus on physical health is valuable, but what if we extended the metaphor to our intellectual lives? Just as we work to nourish and care for our bodies, we might also consider how we nourish and care for our minds.
Lately, I’ve noticed more people using the language of food, diets, and consumption when discussing media, information, and ideas. Cal Newport explores this in his recent book, Slow Productivity, and Yuval Noah Harari touched on it in an interview promoting his latest book, Nexus.
But this is not new. In fact, Arthur Schopenhauer remarks on the topic in his essay “On Reading” found in Parerga and Paralipomena. Schopenhauer says:
Just as we upset the stomach by too much food and thereby do harm to the whole body, so can we cram and strangle the mind by too much mental pabulum.
The quantity, quality, and types of information and media we consume matter.
Think of information as food: as too much food and overeating can lead to health issues and disease, too much information can be damaging to our mental lives. How many of us have been paralyzed by “information overload,” or that frazzled stupor after hours of brainless scrolling?
If quantity matters, so does quality.
I used to think all reading was inherently good—that the act of reading itself was what counted. But now, I’m reconsidering.
Sure, we’re reading more than ever before. But much of what we consume comes from screens, served to us by algorithms, influencers, and media corporations. These quick, easily digestible snippets of information are the “fast food” of the intellectual landscape.
When we think of fast food, we picture calorie-rich, nutrient-poor meals—overprocessed and engineered to be addictive. The media equivalent includes social media posts, clickbait articles, and “content” designed to entertain us and trigger emotional responses rather than provide substance.
Harari calls for an information diet, suggesting we approach our media consumption as we do our food choices.
Just as food diets focus on limiting unhealthy calories, information diets emphasize reducing poor-quality “content” that offers little intellectual nourishment.
If fast food represents low-quality media, what constitutes the intellectual equivalent of a nutritious meal? While defining “wholesome” information can feel subjective—and risks sounding elitist—there’s value in challenging ourselves.
To extend the metaphor, let’s consider exercise.
Physical fitness relies on intentional stress, like resistance training, stretching, and cardio, to strengthen the body. Intellectual health functions the same way in that it benefits from challenging material.
It might be a good time to pick up that philosophy book you have always been curious about.
Perhaps we should resolve to implement a media diet in the new year. We could limit the amount of low-quality “content” we consume.
As the saying goes, “You are what you eat.” Occasional indulgence in junk content is probably fine, but a steady diet of it is surely damaging.
Schopenhauer goes a step further, however, and suggests that reading high quality stuff won’t matter if we don’t make space for contemplation. He writes:
For the more we read, the fewer the traces that are left behind in the mind by what has been read. It becomes like a blackboard whereon many things have been written over one another. Hence we never come to ruminate; but only through this do we assimilate what we have read, just as food nourishes us not by being eaten but by being digested.
For those of us who are writers, photographers, or other creatives, this is especially important. The constant noise of digital media can drown out the signal we’re searching for in our work. The New Year is the perfect time to recalibrate, and the media diet metaphor offers an interesting framework for doing so.
Let’s nourish our minds as intentionally as we nourish our bodies.
Josef Koudelka’s Gypsies
I recently got a copy of Joseph Koudelka’s book, Gypsies, a photobook documenting Romani communities across Europe in the 1960s. The book is a beautiful artifact, capturing a world that feels distant yet human.
Holding a photobook like Gypsies is bittersweet. On the one hand, it reminds us of the photography projects that truly matter. On the other, it highlights just how much superficial work dominates the photography landscape today.
Continuing with the fast food metaphor, much of the photography we encounter on social media could be called “fast photography.” It’s quick to consume and often leaves little to no lasting impression. In many cases, the photographer positions himself (and it is usually a man who does this) as the main character—whether through showing off expensive gear or churning out cliché images. This type of work panders to algorithms and audiences. It aims for likes and shares rather than saying anything of substance.
“Fast photography” is the visual equivalent of junk food: repetitive, shallow, and ultimately forgettable. It challenges neither the viewer nor the creator. As a result, it risks reducing the mainstream association of photography as mere “content,” vapid and stripped of its ability to inspire, provoke, or move.
In contrast, Koudelka’s Gypsies exemplifies the kind of photography that matters. The images in this book were captured over the span of a decade, documenting Romani life in Slovakia, France, and Spain, a community marginalized then and still marginalized today. Through his work, we see intimate glimpses into their lives: families in their homes, moments of rest, and the heavy, emotional weight of death.
Photographers and books like this remind us of photography’s potential. All might not be lost.
Where are the Koudelkas of today?
They’re still out there, but they’re harder to find now. Their work is buried under an avalanche of the easily consumed and quickly forgotten. They are the proverbial needles in a haystack, hidden and obscured by all the chaff and dross.
I recently introduced Gypsies to my son, turning the pages as he sat between my legs. His reaction surprised me. Captivated by the black-and-white photographs, he dropped his brightly-colored plastic toy. He drooled on a few pages, and even giggled when he saw another child looking back at him from the book.
This is the same child who gets restless six pages into Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Yet, somehow, he sat through all 109 black-and-white images in Koudelka’s book.
There’s something timeless about this work. It transcends trends, algorithms, and short attention spans. It actually says something that isn’t performative or focused on the influencer. And viewed in today’s context of “fast photography,” it’s a reminder of what photography can be—and perhaps what we should strive for as creators and consumers of visual art.
Personal Updates
I have a new square print sale on my online shop for the holidays. The print bundles are in limited supply and are 1/3 off. Orders made today through December 15 will ship no later than December 16, after which I’m closing the shop until the new year.
I’ve completed Draft #1 of the introductory chapter for my book proposal. They say, “Always write your introduction last,” and while I expect to continue refining it, the introduction currently serves as the book’s spiritual guide—a foundation for the ideas I want to explore.
Next, I’m turning my attention to another sample chapter, this time a proper chapter meant to be placed somewhere in the middle of the book. I anticipate this round of writing and editing will be more demanding, as the chapter will need to dive deeper into the book’s core themes and ideas.
For now, though, it feels good to have an introduction draft in place.
Check out my creator’s log for those quick updates.
That’s all for this month. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!
Farewell.