There was a time when the word “farming” felt grounded. It implied patience. Seasons. Waiting for things to grow at their own pace. You planted, you tended, you harvested—only when the crop was ready. Content farming, however, is a different kind of agriculture. It is faster, more mechanical, and often less forgiving. Plan the content. Film the content. Harvest the reactions. Repeat.
In theory, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Many creators are disciplined, thoughtful, and intentional. They batch content to protect their time and mental health. They plan so they don’t burn out. That, too, is a form of sustainability.
But lately, a more troubling version of content farming has taken root—one where human experience itself becomes the crop.
The recent video of a young woman filming herself during what was described as a full-blown panic attack on an SIA business class flight brought this discomfort sharply into focus. Not economy. Not budget. Not at the back of the aircraft where turbulence is often felt more intensely. Business class. Wide seats. Relative comfort. A detail that, fairly or unfairly, became central to public reaction.
Let me be clear before we go any further. I am not saying she was faking it. I am not saying she was not having a panic attack. Mental health does not discriminate by cabin class, income level, or seat pitch. Anxiety can surface anywhere, at any time. The World Health Organization has consistently stated that anxiety disorders affect people across socioeconomic backgrounds, and panic attacks can be sudden, intense, and overwhelming, regardless of external comfort (WHO, 2017).
But intent is not the only thing that matters. Impact matters too.
When deeply personal moments are turned into content without sufficient framing, context, or educational purpose, the internet does what it always does. It fills in the gaps. It speculates. It judges. And in doing so, it can cast an unintended shadow over people who genuinely live with severe panic and anxiety disorders—people who do not film themselves, cannot film themselves, or would never think to reach for a phone in the middle of such an episode.
Clinical psychologist Dr. David Barlow, a leading researcher on anxiety disorders, has long described panic attacks as experiences that often involve an intense fear of losing control or dying, accompanied by strong physical symptoms such as shortness of breath, dizziness, and chest discomfort (Barlow, 2002). For many sufferers, the idea of documenting that moment is unthinkable. Survival, not storytelling, is the priority.
This is where the friction begins.
When such videos circulate without explanation or follow-up, they risk reshaping public perception of what panic attacks “look like.” Viewers begin to unconsciously benchmark. This one was filmed. This one was verbal. This one was coherent. And suddenly, those whose experiences are quieter, messier, or invisible feel further erased. As sociologist Erving Goffman once wrote, society is deeply influenced by “presentation of self,” and repeated performances—intentional or not—begin to define reality for audiences (Goffman, 1959).
Content farming accelerates this effect. What was once a singular human moment becomes a replicable format.
We have seen this before. Crying confessionals. Hospital-bed monologues. Grief vlogs. Public breakdowns edited for virality. Media scholar Zeynep Tufekci has written extensively about how platforms reward emotionally charged content because it drives engagement, often without regard for long-term social consequences (Tufekci, 2018). The algorithm does not ask whether sharing is healing or harmful. It only asks whether people stop scrolling.
And when a certain type of content performs well, copycats follow. Not always maliciously. Sometimes it’s mimicry. Sometimes it’s a genuine attempt to be seen. Sometimes it’s the quiet pressure of thinking, “This is how people talk about pain now.”
But scale changes everything.
If enough of these moments surface in public spaces—aircraft, trains, clinics, hospitals—those spaces begin to respond defensively. It is not a coincidence that video recording is already banned in many hospitals and clinics. These policies were introduced not to suppress expression, but to protect privacy, safety, and dignity for patients and staff. The Singapore General Hospital and the Ministry of Health have repeatedly cited patient confidentiality and the risk of disruption as reasons for strict no-recording policies (MOH advisories, various years).
So the uncomfortable question arises. If content farming continues to treat public infrastructure as open studios, are we heading towards similar restrictions on public transport and aircraft? Not because one person filmed a video, but because enough people did—and the cumulative effect became unmanageable.
Public nuisance laws rarely emerge from single incidents. They emerge from patterns.
There is also collateral damage to consider. Cabin crew. Medical staff. Fellow passengers. When a video frames an experience without showing the broader ecosystem around it, others become unwilling characters in a story they did not consent to. Media ethicist Jay Rosen has argued that context collapse—the flattening of complex situations into simplified narratives—is one of the most corrosive effects of social media culture (Rosen, 2012). In content farming, context is often the first thing to be trimmed away.
None of this is an argument for silence.
Human experiences can and should be shared. Stories reduce stigma. Education saves lives. Many advocates have used personal narratives responsibly to explain what anxiety feels like, how to seek help, and how to support others. Organizations such as the National Institute of Mental Health consistently emphasize that personal storytelling, when paired with accurate information, can increase understanding and empathy (NIMH, 2020).
But the key difference lies in intention and execution.
Is the sharing meant to inform, or merely to perform? Is there reflection after the fact, or only raw footage? Is the audience guided towards understanding, or left to react instinctively? As writer Susan Sontag once cautioned in her work on representation and suffering, exposure alone does not guarantee compassion; sometimes it dulls it or distorts it (Sontag, 2003).
Content farming, at its worst, prioritises harvest over health.
And perhaps this is where we need to reclaim an older idea—that some human experiences deserve to remain human before they become content. That not every moment of distress needs to be documented in real time. That privacy is not a failure of transparency, but an act of care.
Not everything needs to be planted, grown, and harvested for public consumption.
Some things need time. Some things need silence. Some things need to be processed before they are presented.
Because when we forget that, the field doesn’t just exhaust the farmer. It exhausts the lives that depend on it.
Written by: Adi Jamaludin
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