Every technological advancement triggers fear and hate among those who are too old to understand it or use it for their personal gain. Meanwhile, this generational gap widens faster and faster, and hordes of youngsters dismiss the past, thinking everything that came before them is lame or useless, while raising the “know-it-all” attitude to its peak (the Dunning-Kruger effect confirmed time and again).

One of the main factors of this “decay” is humanity’s natural tendency to quickly get accustomed to improvements. We always want more, and once we get it, we take it for granted and move on to wanting something else—or something bigger.

The turbo-capitalist approach we see on social media is a key example: everything can be monetized, audiences keep getting younger, and if you don’t ride the trend in the first wave, you’re out. In this model, content is king, but quantity trumps quality, in a pyramid scheme where only a few benefit from mass exploitation.

Obviously, we’re not here to blame the younger generations—we’re here to blame those who exploit them for profit!

You are what you (rep)eat

If you’re into poetry slam, you’ve likely come across “appropriations” or borderline plagiarism. Finding one’s voice often involves experimenting with quotes, covers, or simply mimicking someone else’s style. It’s a natural instinct: driven by curiosity, we learn by treading the paths laid down by others.

We laugh like our best friend, perform like our hero, write like our favorite poet. We consume, reinterpret, rework, and (re)produce. Creating or experiencing something truly original is a rare thing.

But we believe in new (and in you) opportunities. We believe everyone deserves a place to express themselves and learn from others. Video is one of the best ways to document what you can do and one of the easiest ways to share your art. That’s why we created a special video section on SLAM IN.

You’re You, but You’re also every “You” others think You are

Go on YouTube and search for poetry—you’ll get results tailored to you, but someone else would get completely different ones. The algorithm might know you well enough to feed you what you’ll probably like, but as Darwin taught us, diversity is essential. If you stick to just one kind of content, you’ll inevitably miss something—or oversaturate yourself with what you already have.

Curiosity is like a sponge, and the brain is like a muscle: they both need variety (and training) to stay active.

With this in mind, SLAM IN lets you upload three videos of your best performances (we’ve explained why in our first article), giving everyone the same chance to be seen by the world. If someone’s interested in you, they can search for you among other members, check out your videos, and enjoy your art.

Every video uploaded to the platform also ends up in the Media section, where anyone can scroll and discover. We’re implementing a tagging system to help label videos and assist others in finding exactly what they’re looking for.

You’ll have your personal page to showcase your work, but your videos will also contribute to the larger ocean of poetry we’re gathering. (The same applies to written poems: they’ll appear both on your page and in the Poems section for discovery.)

Three is the magic number

Since we’re building everything from scratch and server space has its costs, each video is limited to 200 MB in size, and creators can upload up to three videos for free.

But if you need more room or additional services, we’ll offer membership plans, allowing you to upload 5 or 10 videos, set up livestreams (this feature is tough to implement, but it’s on our roadmap for the year), access your personal cloud drive, and more exciting features. (We could’ve gone with embedding videos from YouTube—it might’ve been cheaper—but we chose to give you the freedom of a Creative Commons license, ensuring what’s yours stays yours.)

Speaking of open-source tools and magic numbers: we’re not stopping at just WordPress and PeerTube—we’re excited to announce our integration with MediaWiki! But we’ll cover that in another post. For now, let’s focus on videos.

Awww snap!

Live poetry events often demand silence and attention (though some thrive on loud music and chaos—and we love those, too!). To avoid interrupting performances with applause, some audiences have adopted snapping fingers as a way to show appreciation.

Well, we’re happy to announce that you’ll be able to snap on SLAM IN videos, too!

Audience members can add a snap icon to precise timestamps where they hear something they love. Performers can then check their stats and boost their ego by seeing how many snaps they’ve received.

For those who dislike this feature, rest assured—you’ll have the option to turn off notifications and enjoy videos without distractions.

Whether you’re a seasoned performer or a casual poetry lover, whether you’ve created a polished videopoem or simply filmed yourself in your kitchen, SLAM IN will embrace every form of poetry you record. Our dream (an achievable one) is to create SLAM IN TV: a non-stop channel where your videos play on rotation. Perfect for when you’re bored, want to spend an evening immersed in poetry, or simply need a quality soundtrack for your day. Just turn on SLAM IN TV, and let poetry from around the world inspire you.

Published: Gen 08 – 2025