What Content Ages Fastest — And How to Stay Popular in 100 Years

Every content creator wants to create content that gets a lot of views. It’s an obvious wish, which is why in most cases creators count views—say, for the last 30 days or for the year.

But nobody cares how many views their content will generate in 10 years, or even 100 years.

When I ask myself, “Will people consume my art in 100 years?” I become sad. But this question pushes me to rethink what I’m doing.

I know that sounds crazy, and maybe you’ll ask, “Why do you care about it? We’re living now, and we need results tomorrow, not in 10 years.”

But you know, in my heart I dream that someone, after my death—let’s say in 2100—will consume my content and think, “HMM, this dude knew what he said, and he was pretty smart. Interesting to learn something from him.”

I believe that a lot of creators have the same thoughts.

I believe that leaving a legacy is a basic need for creative people.

That is why I decided to write this essay and figure out which types of content do not age fast and have a chance to be viewed in 2100.

Firstly, let’s think about the formats: text, audio, images, and video.

Audio is the oldest. Our ancestors could speak and tell stories to each other roughly 50,000 years ago. The problem was that no recording technology existed yet, so stories lived in human heads.

It was actually the first type of “cloud storage.” Nowadays, we use Google Drive and share Google Docs, but back then the “nodes” of the cloud were people’s heads—the places where information was stored.

The first writing was invented by the Sumerians in modern-day Iraq, around 3200 BCE. Writing is a technology to encrypt information and transfer it across distance and time.

Here is the “first Google Spreadsheet,” where ancient scribes inscribed multiple clay tablets with hymns, laws, and accounting records—sometimes grouped into bundles.

At the same time, people tried to record information in image form by making rock paintings in caves (ancient rock art).

You might be surprised, but ancient people had an early “video” — a kind of “fire projector” that sent flickering shadows across the wall when someone performed a “hand theater.”

The first paintings that look like photography appeared in the Renaissance period, created by masters like Leonardo, Brunelleschi, Raphael, and Michelangelo. Before that, images were more primitive.

The first audio recording was made in 1877 by Thomas Edison’s phonograph and became common in the 1930s thanks to radio. Video formats became popular in the 1950s.

What I want to say:

Text is a far more established and mature format than images or video. There’s nothing new in text—26 letters haven’t changed in thousands of years—but video formats evolve dramatically fast. Text may be less popular and even boring, but it also becomes outdated much more slowly than video.

If I gave you Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations without telling you it’s 2,000 years old, you’d probably think he’s just a “smart dude from Instagram.” But show someone the first YouTube video, “Me at the Zoo,” and they’ll instantly know it’s from the mid-2000s.

The same goes for images: you can tell a 2010 Instagram photo from a 2020 one at a glance. I catch myself thinking I can easily consume text that’s 100 years old, but I can’t watch movies from the 1970s—and I can’t stand YouTube videos that are even five years old. Text is truly the most time-scalable format.

Why it happens?

My first thought is that there’s nothing new in text format—it’s very limited. We have 26 + characters in the alphabet that haven’t changed for thousands of years.

Images, photos, art, and video have seen countless innovations in the last 20 years. We literally see the difference between videos from 2015, 2020, and 2025.

But this channel is still evolving. Maybe videos recorded in 2030 will still be watchable in 2300, just like text now.

Or maybe the gap will be even bigger.

With AI, creators will generate fully 3D environments where viewers are immersed—and static video will feel boring. Maybe all videos will become “games” where the audience plays instead of watches. Or we’ll actually be inside the “game,” not just passive observers of flat video on a screen.

You might say nobody wants to read text, but:

Who will die first—classic text or “flat” video—is a big question.

Let’s look at the image format.

This format is visual, like video. Text and audio survive because they’re about thoughts, not technology—and human nature hasn’t changed in thousands of years.

But our way of life has changed a lot, so the “picture” around us has changed too. Old art or photos can feel uninformative or dated.

Modern smartphone cameras let us capture the world in high quality—and photographic technology is essentially mature. It sounds strange, but here are photos taken 100 years apart. I can’t imagine how they could get any more true-to-life.

The same happened with classical art: no one can paint more realistically than Velázquez, Shishkin, or Rembrandt.

Early 20th-century Impressionists like Van Gogh and Monet knew that the niche of realism was already taken, so their art had to be anything but realistic.

Today, AI is shifting images from “photo realism” toward “photo impressionism,” but that’s another topic.

Perhaps AI impressionism will be the final technological leap in image creation—because I don’t see how images could improve further on the tech side.

In summary: pure “realistic photography” is a mature technology and will remain just as viewable in 100 years. AI-generated art already delivers perfect, technologically advanced images that will age well.

Your Instagram grid from 2010 couldn’t travel through the ages because it was the beginning of photo technology development.

But today’s Instagram photos could be viewable in 2300 because the quality is already very good.

Image format, like text and audio, is highly time-scalable.

P.S. It was a surprise for me, because before writing this essay I thought images became outdated very quickly and couldn’t be time-scalable. But while writing I figured out that they can.

Finally, let’s jump to the video format.

To me, it’s the riskiest format—it ages faster than all the others because it’s the youngest.

Video technology develops very fast, which is why older videos become outdated almost instantly.

The second point of risk is that it’s resource-consuming. When you watch a video, you spend both eye time and ear time.

An image is the fastest way to convey context. One image is worth thousands of words—one second and you understand what’s going on.

With video, you need time to get context. Let’s say 20 seconds or 20 minutes—then you demand high quality, because nothing can feel boring when you’ve invested that much time.

With each leap in video quality, old videos look dated in an instant.

The funny thing is, if you drop an old-style environment into today’s dynamic world, it still feels okay. For example, when you watch a historical movie about ancient Rome, everything on screen is old—but you stay interested.

Here’s an AI-generated image of an ancient Roman philosopher recording a podcast with a medieval knight. It sounds funny, but if this quality of capture had existed, we could truly watch podcasts that are 1,000 years old.

Why does this happen?

I think it’s because of dynamics.

Video hasn’t hit its limit yet. In text, we don’t need more than 30 characters to express our thoughts. In audio, we don’t need to listen faster than 220 words per minute. In images, we don’t need more realism than photography already provides.

But with video, we NEED a deeper sense of reality that only moving images can simulate.

Classic video runs at 24 frames per second. VR, however, is a whole different beast—it’s “360° video.”

For example: you watch an interview with hosts on your screen, but AI can generate a full 3D room from that footage. Slip on VR glasses, and you’re in the same space with them. It’s still “video,” but in a three-dimensional world.

I mean, this format has huge potential—and it’s only just beginning.

Because video keeps evolving, it risks being leapfrogged in the next 50 years. I remember my architecture professor saying, “If a building has stood for 30 years, the chance it will stand for another 100 is almost 100%.” An old state building carries almost zero risk of collapse; a new skyscraper always carries more uncertainty.

This means text and audio are more sustainable than video. Text and images are the fastest formats—one second to grasp an image, and reading is the quickest way to dive deep into information. Podcasts are slower than reading, but audio will always be in demand because we have more “ear time” than “eye time.”

You can cook and listen to a podcast, but watching video demands both eyes and ears.

New AI-driven VR videos will replace flat YouTube clips eventually. So if you want to transfer your thoughts to 100 years from now, classic video may not be the best choice—but text and audio will work best

Our content actually spans different types of information—entertainment, educational, technical instructions, etc.

Every type of content has its own expiration time. If you want to scale your work over time, ask yourself:

“How can I create evergreen content?”

• Political news becomes outdated fastest. Ask ChatGPT, “Show me a summary of political news from three months ago,” and it’s already obsolete.
• Evergreen topics like “the philosophy of life” or “how to live happily” stay relevant for decades—or centuries.

I’m 100% sure that if you found an article from Ancient Rome time—written by an 80-year-old man—about daily exercise and diet, you’d still be interested

Also, I’m 100% sure that if you came across a “Facebook post” from ancient Rome about politics (an essay on ancient marketing), you’d see something like “Julius hates Agrippa,” which would be absolutely uninteresting to us today.

Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations remains popular and useful—but his daily work mails would mean nothing to us now.

At the same time, evergreen topics can’t go viral like breaking news.

I don’t recall any useful content that my friends shared like crazy—but if there’s an assassination attempt on your country’s president, every family talks about it… and in two weeks everyone has already moved on.

Plato’s thoughts aren’t viral, but they’re evergreen. Industry news goes viral but becomes yesterday’s story very fast.

On this chart, you can see that the more viral an idea is today, the less chance it has to survive for centuries.

You can post a TikTok and get 1 million views in a week—and that’s it.

Cicero’s quotes never had “millions of views” back then, but imagine how many times his thoughts were reshared over 2,000 years.

Cicero has effectively racked up billions of “shares.”

The same happens with technical guides. Imagine a text instruction on “how to shoe a horse.”

Today, “how to change a car wheel” is far more useful—but in 100 years there might be no wheels at all, so both guides will be obsolete.

By contrast, Machiavelli’s The Prince (500 years old) on how to rule a government still feels fresh—and likely will for another 500 years. A manual on sword use is outdated for modern armies, yet Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (2,500 years old) remains popular.

Tactical guides age fast. Strategy guides do not.

That’s because tactics rely on rapidly changing technology.

The same applies in the influencer world: content on mastering storytelling stays evergreen, while “how to edit Reels” tutorials are outdated within a year.

Imagine reading this in 2100—would you want to learn about “archetypes in marketing”? Probably yes. How to build a WordPress site? Probably not.

Let’s overlay formats with content types:

• Political or industry news in video format can go massively viral—but it becomes outdated fast.
• Ideas and insights in text or audio (like this essay you’re reading) aren’t viral, but they’re evergreen.

P.S. I’m not saying you shouldn’t create videos—you absolutely should, because they get followers, customers, and money right now. What I’m saying is: