Mind the Gap: Spotting the Brown Noise (part 3)
Part 3 of a series of "noisy" posts about information noise in general, and brown noise in particular: what it is, who creates it, how to spot it, and what we can do about it.
Who let the dogs out?
All online information noise originates from content creators, ie the people behind each piece of information, aka “bakers” - if we keep going with the baguette analogy. Considering the amount of noise density and intensity, we can identify several types of bakers. Yet, there’s one in particular that is responsible for the majority of brown noise out there. They are the reason behind this article.
But before getting to them, let’s quickly go through the whole list.
Starting from the low end of the noise spectrum, we have the scavengers. These are people who mostly consume information and generate new content very seldom. The majority of the Internet users are like that. Despite my latest activity, I’m one of them. There’s no shame in it, it’s just how it is. There’s a lot of static coming from them, but static is good because static is ultimately silence. So, I totally “approve that message”! 🤛
Then we have the true content creators group.
Two kind of folks in this one:
The professionals. These are recognized, accomplished, and admired people. Many are paid to do it, and most of them are doing it well. Because there are other people validating, and checking what they generate. And ultimately enjoying the fruit of their work. Well, most of the time… Noise is very low, and usually goes unnoticed.
The altruists. These people are the ones sharing their “how-to” guides to help other folks out there sort out their shit. Everything from dealing with sprinklers, getting rid of red wine stains, to how to invest your money in ETFs. Some noise? Absolutely! Especially from YouTube channels like this one. But they get a lot of points for good intentions, so it sort of compensates.
Moving towards the middle of the spectrum, we find another big group of influencers. In their world, the number of followers matters more than the content they produce. Most of the time they promote products or services of third parties, in exchange for money. It could be anything from kitchen utensils, to clothes, to travel destinations. They do it through influencer programs like Instagram or Amazon. It’s a modern take on door-to-door salesmen or distributing flyers, but mostly with a pull model, rather than the old push. Nothing to gain or lose here, unless you are into what they’re promoting. Their noise is sort of targeted, so it can be easily shielded away.
Then there are the trolls. They are the nay-sayers, the pessimists and the critics, the ones that believe and spread conspiracies. These folks love to mostly comment and add bits and pieces of misinformation to existing data. This is not to say they don’t initiate fresh new content - some do so with gusto. They sympathize hard-liners and tough rules. They despise free speech but like free stuff. Their noise has various densities but it’s always “served” with enough intensity to distort reality. Again kinda easy to spot and just scroll over.
And finally, moving towards the high end of the noise spectrum, there are the blabbers. These are mostly people who can’t stop sharing useless and confusing content, mostly around their experiences and views of the world1. Very prolific folks on all media platforms, sometimes even entertaining. Before the Internet, I reckon these kind of folks were the ones who knew all the juicy stuff about people on your street or in politics. You’d run into them at your local barbershop, market or the pub. Thus, like in real life, you can just walk on and ignore. So I’m good with them, too.
Let’s see them all on a chart2:
Still, there’s this one other group at the high end of the spectrum, and the noise they generate is the most damaging one there is: the brown noise.
[to be continued…]
Jon Morrow does a great job deep diving in this category.
Naturally, I expect there’s quite some overlap between the levels generated of two adjacent groups, so you should consider the markers more like an indication of an average rather than an exact level.