Hope you're all doing well. I haven't had a lot of time to do what I usually do recently due to a (rather serious) real life situation currently going on, so I apologize ahead of time. Things will probably be light around here until the end of the year until it is dealt with. Hopefully I can explain the situation all in the future better than this, but it is what it is right now.
So instead lets talk about other things.
Today I just wanted to highlight this video from David V Stewart as a bit of a companion to his recent one about NewPub's Content Flood and discovery problem. This time the subject is about how OldPub is using the aforementioned conveyor belt production techniques to pump out soulless product while charging a premium for it at the same time. In essence, any problem you might have with NewPub remains far worse in the old system. This isn't newly discovered information, but it is rare that you get such a clear example of it thrown in your face.
This event continues the trend of mass-produced product pumped out into the void for easy profit and to be instantly forgotten. The Content Mill era is still alive and strong.
We're still in the grifting stage of collapse where most people involved in it are merely looking for the quickest way to wring the audience dry before the system totally falls apart under the strain. OldPub, being so much worse off than any of us even realize, has been in this stage so long that the project referenced in the above video would have been shocking as little as a decade ago is now considered par for the course and not surprising at all. In fact now you will even get consumers defending this practice because Rules Were Followed (that no one agreed with). Any excuse for OldPub's behavior is just another sign of accepting decline.
The fact of the matter is that someone wanted a quick buck for less effort and they were willing to excuse obvious fraud to the audience in order to continue the grift. It was either that or they were simply unaware and unwilling to look into any of this because they just don't care. Regardless of what it is, the end result is the same. It is contempt for the audience.
While one could say this is good for NewPub and independent creators, in actuality is probably not good for anyone. Those disgusted who walk away will probably just never come back, and those who accept it will just encourage further decline. At this point, it feels more like the two separate systems have nothing to do with each other and what one does with not affect the other in any appreciable way. Whether you consider that bad or good is up to you, but it definitely seems to be the case that they no longer influence the other at all anymore.
This decay of OldPub has gotten to the point where, if you can slough through similar projects to the above cropping up all over, you are more likely to find something worth your time by avoiding the older industries. This is because, as the video shows, these companies don't really care what gets produced in any capacity. They only care if it's cheap and if they make big bank on whatever is tossed out with minimal effort. Such a mindset will not produce anything great. It can't.
This has been an increasing problem for decades and it's not going to stop anytime soon. There is a reason the older industries are fading. All this is to say it's why NewPub should not be looking to repeat the same errors as the dead industry we are watching break down before us. Pumping out product should not be a goal, not even if the product is "good" because art isn't product in the first place. It can be sold as one, but that is not the core of what it is and treating it like that has not made anything better. This is not a highfalutin way of referring just to "good" art either. No, all art is valuable beyond its monetary value and how much is exchanged to access it.
You can disagree with that assessment, but this old way of thinking about entertainment as disposable and replaceable is the exact reason those ancient industries are dying. They did not decide to randomly produce bad material--they realized their job was to pump out maximum product for maximum return and for minimal cost and effort. When this is the core of what you do, it's only natural that the thing itself was eventually going to be the last thing considered.
And lo and behold, that's exactly where we are. Turning NewPub and all the newer alternative spaces cropping up into this same state will eventually lead to the same result. There is no pause feature on Mr. Bones' Wild Ride. We already know all this.
Entropy doesn't take a day off. If you fight for the same failing processes and systems that lead us here, just in an "indie" coating, you will still end up in the same place you started in. And what good does that do anyone? Why would we want this to happen again?
Why wouldn't we want an alternative industry to actually be an alternative?
Fortunately, it looks as if most creators in the NewPub and adjoining spaces are a lot more ambitious than those in OldPub are now, and more creative in how they use their tools and ideas. But that does not mean we shouldn't keep on our toes that we don't fall into the same traps as the above. It's very easy when one loses sight of what this is all for.
That last thing we want is the same disaster to befall us again.
Anyway, that's all for this week. Thank you for all your support this year. It's been a strange one, and it's still about to get stranger (for me, at least). I'll try to get more interesting topics in the future, but for now that is it for now.
Have yourself a good November and I'll see you soon!
We've talked about the future of the publishing industry and how it's changed so much over even just the last few years. But while we go on and on about death of OldPub (and yes, it's done and finished) we also do not seem to have much of a plan for what NewPub's future will be. Not that one can "plan" a future for a large burgeoning industry like this, but more that there isn't many ideas been discussed about what should happen.
The above video by David V. Stewart is not one of complaining of the market itself, there is little to be done about the state of something you can't change, but more about the realities of how things currently are and the modern mentalities that prevent us from improving our station in any significant way. The truth might be that "indie" owns the publishing world right now, but it is a mess for discoverability and there is no real way to connect with a larger audience due to the sheer amount of Content being produced in lieu of actual stories.
As mentioned many times before, NewPub, as it is right now, is not the savior of reading or writing in the modern age, which is what it needs to be. The industry is currently a pit of rehashing late 20th century cliches and stereotypes into a void and getting as much return as those trying to reach audiences on any level other than those engaging in pure surface pandering. There is no real way for a writer, good or bad, to sift through the noise and reach a wider audience.
And the biggest problem is that the noise is getting louder and drowning out everything else while the base audience remains the same size, or continually shrinks.
One can argue and scream about AI until they are blue in the face but the side of the argument not discussed is its ability to flood the market with Content. This deluge of Content overwhelms and crowds out everything else to pander to the lowest common denominator. It takes away any sense of true selection and turns NewPub itself into a battle of who can advertise their Content better to a narrow audience instead of being about creating art to connect to a wider audience. It more or less turns the industry into a cynical cash grab, and the worst part is that the cash is barely there to begin with. It is not giving the audience more choice, it is telling them there is only limited Product that can be generated and that they would better use their time finding some other space where wringing dollars out of a half-interested customer base isn't so paramount.
This is why NewPub has had the growing pains it has had, and why it hasn't reached its potential. It is not the readers who caused this but a large segment of authors who merely wish to have their names on products and rehash their version on half a century old genre tropes to the void. There is no direction, no goal, and no cooperation, to anything bigger. All any onlooker will see is chaos and vapidity. Neither will grow any sort of scene, and that's why there hasn't been the audience explosion there should have been.
Of course one can't ever build a scene based on quality alone. Quality isn't as subjective as we like to think, but taste very much is, and the truth is that there is no real uniform taste in the wider culture anymore. Yes, this is mostly due to the destruction of the monoculture, but even alternative scenes once used to thrive when they had a unifying element to them. Simply put: there is still a whole alternative ecosystem missing. Everything is just as blown apart and atomized as audiences are from the mainstream industries.
Before the age of mass media it was much easier to have universal themes and connection with each other, but in the age where everyone's fetishes, preferences, and hyper specific niches almost become personality traits in themselves, there is little reason to find anything outside of our narrow worlds, especially less of one when the ultimate goal is Content Consuming. Even more so when you can automatically generate your own personal Content instead. Why would you go looking for any outside yourself at that point? As we can see from how things are, the audience doesn't see any reason to patronize creators when they can have the bare minimum for nothing.
There is a lot of doom and gloom in just about every artistic circle these days due to how much more fractured, unsteady, and broken, everything is. No one can really get a foothold unless they want to pump out algorithm defined Content into the ether, which is how we've been trained to treat entertainment and art our entire lives. But we also all know that this exact mentality is what led to this current state no one enjoys. It can't continue, and in order for it to stop we need to find other ways, and until we do it's only going to get worse and worse.
And it already is doing just that. We have not reached the bottom.
Just because OldPub is worse (as the above video shows), it does not mean it is okay for NewPub to kick back and rest as that implosion happens. It's really not going to do anything but chase even more readers away from the hobby at a time where we've already been hemorrhaging them for decades now. We need to grow, but we don't seem to want to do anything in order to actually do that. OldPub doesn't think its readers matter, but why do so many NewPub also think this same destructive way? Where are the conversations happening about this topic?
This throwaway style of thinking about art has made everything feel disposable and pointless. There is nothing being built on, only a race to the bottom whether it be in production itself or in a drive for artistic merit. What happened to striving for more? Not only just as artists or audiences, but as people? When do we stop living by moldy tropes and jangling keys and start looking for connection and meaning once more? When do we stop treating life as a beltline factory? The 20th century is dead. I keep saying it because we seem to not want that reality to sink in.
There is no individual or wider callout here. I am just as guilty of thinking this way about the world. It is only when witnessing the destruction of things I loved that I could take stock and realize not only how temporary they truly were but also what really mattered beyond the surface level. And yes, even the "trashiest" piece of entertainment can still house a spark of life in it that can affect anyone who comes across it. All the more reason to make it mean something in the greater scheme of things.
The video from the Second Story above shows how even plot structure and general story mechanics, even when Done Well, can be sued to peddle pure trash into the mind and soul. It isn't just a matter of Content, but intent. Why does your story exist? What does it exist to do? What is it for? While leisure and entertainment is a fine enough reason, it still has to give something edifying to the readers beyond checkbox lists, otherwise it's just clutter. Said clutter is what we need less of to truly set NewPub apart from the rotting old system, and that is absolutely not currently happening. In fact, it is the exact opposite that is going on.
NewPub or OldPub, the overall issue is that while everything has changed much on the surface and in the wider world, the biggest thing that hasn't is our mentality towards both creating and taking in entertainment and art really hasn't. We still want to replicate the exact tropes and styles from when we were kids without adding anything to them or giving new context. We just want to rehash into the void while expecting others to lap it all up. Even when replicating dead OldPub trends that were floated by mass media manipulation and friends in high places decades ago is now no longer selling because they were never actually popular to begin with. The entire framework we grew up under was fake and we still have yet to let that sink in, never mind affect what we make. The frame shift is a lot more jarring than we want to accept.
This fractured state of everything makes finding a universal touchstone even more difficult, and that's without even getting into quality at all. Everyone now has their own island and reaching them in the first is an overwhelmingly Herculean ask that no writer has ever had to worry about before. Art needs to connect, but finding common ground to connect today is a problem without even considering art at all. And using crusty formulas and AI models to pump Content out does not address this deep societal problem. In fact, that only makes it worse.
For example, think about what creating entertainment for a general audience entails today versus yesterday. No, I am not talking about vague mass media consumer demographics, I mean such as old family sitcoms or classic cartoons used to be able to reach. They were things meant not for kids or one group, but for everyone in the family to enjoy together. Can such an audience even be imagined today when making something? Even if it does exist, how would one even begin to approach them with their art? Can we even imagine spending time with our real life neighbor, never mind a stranger producing a piece of art for us? Those are the real questions.
If you wanted to make something for a kid audience, for instance, how would you go about it? Decades of bad standards from unelected busybodies like Peggy Charren combined with Christian Inc corporate approved standards have warped expectations of what a child can even take in. While we could agree that swearing or sexual content is off the table, what happens when we disagree what swearing or sexual content even consists of in the first place? Because this is the current state of things and you can find no shortage of arguments over this exact topic. You could always pick your own standards to operate off of, but then that also runs the risk of not reaching much of anyone and stranding yourself on an island. This is a serious problem with how things currently are.
How does this bridge get built? It probably involves going back to basics and finding common ground again. This isn't a negotiable, it's necessary for even beginning to connect again.
As the above video shows, stories and art have a defined purpose and until we even begin to agree on that again, nothing will improve. The people in charge of the dying old industries all look down on their entire audience (no, not just those they politically disagree with, even their fellow travelers) and the ones in new industries are using those failed old advertising methods to reach those disillusioned by those industries in the first place.
This is the true reason all these burgeoning alternative industries aren't growing as they should: they have yet to become true alternatives. They will not be able to do that until the old ways and mentalities are finally thrown away, and, unfortunately, we've made little progress in doing that. Until we do, the hard audience cap will not be removed.
All these moving parts we're building have to come together to form a new system: a mechanism to produce art and entertainment better than the failing ones behind us. The old industries broke down because they were always going to end eventually. The only reason anything is even operating still is because of the men who built these systems long ago being much more skilled than those of us left today. However, no one can patch this leaky ship, and everyone knows it. Time is running out to be build true alternatives, and we aren't doing a great job of that.
The question then becomes a game of chicken wondering who is going to make the first real move to build. It won't be those in charge of the old systems: they're too busy being in the looting stage of the decline. They're going to wring every dollar they can on the way out. This is why even humoring their attempts at milking dead IP is a terrible idea, ironic or not. It will not encourage anything positive except to delay what is inevitable. Everything ends eventually, and we can't stop the tide forever.
However, it isn't just about accepting that reality, it is also about building a proper escape shelter when it does, and we have not done that. Until we do, we deserve to be where we are and, unfortunately, it is the audience that will continue to pay for it. We don't want to connect with them and so they don't want to connect with us, and on and on this goes. At some point we have to do Something Else before we lose these forms and hobbies we purportedly love so much.
The divisiveness also won't last forever. Whatever solves that problem, I can't say, but it will have to happen. When it does we need to have something better built than what came before, something meant to last and not run by those who desire nothing more than bottom of the barrel "Content" to fill narrow gaps in their schedule. We're human beings: we both need and desire something more than that.
And soon enough, we're going to fix that problem. We just have to address it in the first place. Only then can the big shift finally happen. Until then, we remain in this neutral state, waiting. What else can we do?
That's all for this week. Have yourself a good end of October and I'll see you on Halloween!
We made it to October and the weather finally shifting to something seasonal, so let's really get into something eerie for the spooky season. Once again, we're going to go into today's creative climate, a horror unto itself.
Much has been said and written about how terrible the education system has been for fostering creativity and imagination, but in the end it's still not enough for the simple reason that it's frankly not good enough. We are all hungry for more.
This isn't just about the US, either, but a worldwide phenomenon of machinery designed to turn both the individual and the collective into a machine meant to churn out whatever the top of the chain desires. This mentality has turned all mainstream entertainment into pure swill bailed together by tired 20th century tropes and franchises meant to educate the ignorant masses into worldviews and behaviors that might have felt fresh 100 years ago but are clearly outdated today. We've gone over that before, so there's no sense rehashing it. Artificiality has always been valued over creativity.
As the above video shows, the system itself is not designed to stir the imagination, no matter how many TV shows or movies you see or remember that told you how important "Creativity" was, in the end it was never about that. It was only ever pretty words meant to boost the ego and coax all potential creatives to follow the same path to deliver the same Content. And looking at the modern climate today, it feels like a joke from a '90s animated sitcom. That is because it is.
And that was made in the '90s. Nothing has improved since then, but clearly it was an issue even back then. In Current Year, the film industry now is on its last legs.
So how do we create a system that incentivizes creativity over slop? Humanity over artificialness? Excitement over formula? How do we overhaul the 20th century machinery that has ground to a stop here in the 21st?
Many complain about how the AI explosion fosters an environment of lowest common denominator storytelling to churn out product, but the truth of the matter is the industry has been incentivizing it themselves over decades now. The above video from the '90s highlights the mentality as it already existed back then, and it's much worse today.
The problem has always been the artificialness has been baked into the education artists receive themselves. One cannot explore outside the socially acceptable ideologies of today. One cannot look beyond the genres the mainstream has decided are all that is, even as their stores empty and their sales crater. One cannot experiment because safety is incentivized and mass produced to blot out anything else coming up.
As the below thread shows, the issue with artificiality is not the lowering of the bar, that is already on the floor and has been for decades. The problem has always been that the education system has always desired it end there. Blaming AI for it is missing the forest for the trees. The system was always going to lead here, and it is the root of all this.
The biggest problem with all of this is that there is no easy solution. There is no switch one can flip to making everything better. In order to even begin to fix if requires an honest reflection and reassessment of a lot of bad ideas that have come since the industrial revolution kicked into high gear and became a religion for materialists. We simply aren't there anymore, no one thinks that way or believes it, and yet we float on rehashing it to diminishing returns. Now there are no returns at all.
We know the education system does not produce creative people. It also does not produce writers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, or critics. Yes, people go into these schools and come out in those professions, but next to none are actually made into those things from what they learn. Kids are instead turned into automatons and widgets for the crumbling machine, meant fulfill roles no audience wants and job positions that are quickly fading away. It is detached from reality, and we all know it.
So why are we still operating in this way?
As I said, blaming AI at this juncture is stopping well short of the problem. Even if it went away tomorrow, it wouldn't stop how the audience has been trained to Consume Content and expect beltline product pumped out indefinitely. That isn't going away. All this AI stuff is simply doing exactly what those in charge want. (Which is why they are already using it without saying anything at all, and audiences will eventually accept it. Anything to keep the flood of Product going forever.)
The only way out is reorienting of systems and thought processes. The 20th century is done, as been said countless times, so why are we still clinging to it? What advantage do we have clinging to dying systems and ideas that have proven to be dead ends?
We don't train creatives. Arguments could be made that we never have, but we certainly do not do it today. We have Content Creators, not artists or creatives. All we want is nothing and everything at the same time, and that is why we have no need to educate or train anyone. And that is how you get today's dead culture. Nothing is being made: it's being produced.
We require a re-enchantment of the world, a detachment of cynicism, subversion, and emptiness. The only way to get that is to admit where we are now was a mistake and won't lead anywhere else. We have to move on.
Let's not worry too much about a dead past, but work to build a living future. It's going to happen eventually so there's no sense wasting time. We can start today.
We're back with another one of these, this time on a subject I know we're all thinking about. The question is in just how artificial is everything right now?
This week let us tackle some questions based on this well discussed subject. What exactly is artificiality in art? Where does it come from, what is the source of it, and how can we move past it? Lastly, why does it feel like everything around us is artificial even when we know it's made by real people? We can't answer them all today, but we can scratch the surface before we can even think to strike at the heart of all this craziness.
What is really going on?!?
We're all well aware nothing in the arts or entertainment sphere is "natural" anymore, in that the ideas being expressed aren't deeper than surface level and rarely do they go beyond cliche phrases and unambitious characters or plots meant to rehash Current Year dogma. What we also don't address is that we also reshape this in the form of digestible Content meant to satisfy all the bots and algorithms that allow us to see anything anymore.
In other words, not only do we deliberately talk down to others in order to satisfy social demands, we also morph our language and alter our approach to our robot overlords so they can even be seen by anyone in the first place. In effect, we aren't actually working for customers: we're working for robots and filtering our "Content" to get it past them
The idea of "Working for the robot" has already affected video makers on YouTube and heavily filtered what they want to produce. If you wonder why so many channels have videos with wildly different view counts on their videos, this is the reason for it. They simply aren't doing what the algorithm gods demand of them. What these means is that they tailor their videos and thumbnails and advertising to be deemed worthy for acceptance by the algorithm (be it YouTube or any social media site) in order to maybe have an audience to watch their videos.
The robots aren't on your side.
This also is why so many bigger creators now have multiple channels (some focusing on livestreams, for instance) because it will not negatively impact their original one. This is because they have to work around (and for) the robots who are their real employers.
Author David V. Stewart talks about the topic in the video above. Since he is a YouTuber going back many years, he has seen trends come and go, as well as channels and creators. Whatever worked back in the day no longer does, making it more of a hassle for viewers to find channels and for channels to get viewers. Essentially, much like everything else, it's been flipped on its head backwards from its original purpose and intent. Check out the video above to see how that is.
It is difficult to blame so many video makers on YouTube since, well, there isn't much choice, especially for those doing this for a living. However, it does not change the fact that their work is being changed specifically for an entity that does not care about them or their audience, and, in the end, will negatively impact the quality of what they do. It's a Catch 22 situation, and the only way to fight it is to risk angering the very gods you are meant to placate.
Basically, as they are, the customer is not the person engaging in what you do: it's the robot sentinel watching you overhead like a hawk and ready to blow you away like an armed satellite should you fail to meet its demands. Not exactly a healthy position to be in.
The only solution, as always, is to take a risk.
We're diving so deep into artificiality we no longer even remember the purpose of producing for people isn't to pump content out like industrialization taught us. It's not to make tons of money, either (though of course that's nice), but to create something that can reach people and show them something a little higher and leave them in a better position than where they started. We can't do that if we're too busy being distracted, terrorized, and ruled over, by things that simply don't matter.
And artificiality doesn't matter. This sort of "Content" will be forgotten. It will come and go and disappear as quickly as it came into the void with the rest of it. It doesn't matter how much the "Content" mimics the real thing--it has nothing to say that isn't surface level or has been repeated hundreds of times by people who have already said it better before. This artificial product can't aim higher or show anything new.
But we can.
Hopefully sometime in the future we can build a scene that has this focus of connection at the forefront. It sure would be nice. Until then, enjoy "Content" being pumped out into the pipes, because that's all we're going to get as long as we work for the robots.
Personally, I think we've all had enough of it. Audiences want something real, something they can believe in. That said, all we can do is wait for enough pushback on how things currently are in order to find another path out of here. Until that happens, we're simply stuck waiting and in neutral, hoping for a new way.
For a post-Cultural Ground Zero society, I'm pretty sure we're used to that by now. After nearly three decades of stagnation, what's another couple years? Hopefully we won't have to wait much longer.
In other news, I recently introduced a new podcast series on the Patreon called the Drifter Mindset. This one is specifically about my writing and storytelling. I read a story, talk about where it came from, the meanings, and the themes, and what it meant to me as a writer. The usual podcast will continue on as always, but this one will be another bonus for anyone who wants to join. It's going to be as in depth as I can get it to be, so the episodes will be longer than a usual episode of Letters from the Wasteland. I have been publishing for nearly a decade, after all.
All that aside, I hope things are going well for you all out there, and I'll see you next time!
It's been a strange week with a surprising amount of celebrity deaths, and the heat has yet to calm itself down even a little, but at least it's done. August isn't that far away. With that out of the way, lets get into it!
I know you're probably wondering, if you're over a certain age, when the internet stopped being a fun place to visit with a lot to see and do. If you're under a certain age you might even be resentful over why so many people spend so much time in a place as boring as the internet. These two views are obviously opposites, but they are also both correct. The answer is that the internet was once a much different place than it is today, and what it is today is a far cry of what it once was.
Of course we have discussed the phenomenon of Dead Internet Theory (which is no longer a theory) before, but what we haven't really talked about is the deliberate moves made to get us to this place. We all made the choice to be here, after all. Where the internet was once the last frontier, the wild west of open spaces and the unknown, decades ago, it has now been tamed and razed, leaving little left but the same lame corpo jargon as every place else outside of it. Chances are you only go online now for a small handful of things these days, no longer is it to explore and find new things. Not that you could anymore if you wanted to.
Without even getting to the growing glut of AI generated nonsense, the untold truth is that the internet had already been heading in this direction before we got to that point. Just like in the arts and entertainment, the goal became to automate a constant flow of Content out into the world and into our overstimulated brains, quality be damned as long as it has certain expected Tropes and aesthetics, and that's exactly what it does now. No longer is the internet about exploring or seeing or creating new things: it's about consuming Content.
It's also flooded the world with noise. Yes, even the offline world.
We're overstimulated and obsessed with both blending into the crowd and sticking out from it, our identities as concocted as the formula we desire in the Content we Consume. All this, once again, before the AI issue is even a speck on the horizon. The AI is just the most straightforward way we learned of making it easy to do.
What to be an artist? Generate an image. Want to be a songwriter? Generate a song. Want to be an author? Generate a story. Now you can get any identity you want with the push of button. That's the heart of the whole issue. It is to keep the old Baby Boomer lie alive that "You can do anything you put your mind to" which is very obviously untrue, but as the post-9/11 world has shown: reality is the enemy. It isn't about the art or the people, it's about the self. The atomized and abandoned individual struggling to find a place in a flooded world of noise with no connections to others. This is what the internet is about today, and it's where it was always going to go once social media came into existence nearly two decades ago.
We aren't connecting anymore; we're turning inward and making sure everyone sees us as we do. It's very contradictory, obviously, but that's the nature of where we are.
This is obviously reflected in everywhere else in our modern world, but the internet was once the last escape. It was once the last vestige of freedom from the safetyism that had been strangling the rest of the outside world since the '90s turned into the birth of Safetyism. Now that online space has begun to fade just as the youngest generations have had enough of the artificiality and wish to blow it all up. They will eventually succeed, regardless of what you believe the "good" or "bad" faction in all this is. It's been a long time coming.
One can always bring up how trends come and go and how times will always change, which is true, however this is different from just a trend or a fad. It's different because the internet has reshaped the way day to day life is performed and the expectations around it. It's changed how people react to one another. It's changed how we see every aspect of the world and raised our tolerance for unreality in everyday life while also diminishing our sense of whimsy and fun. Turns out the real Fantasy is what the Cyberpunk dystopia ended up being. Unreality in every day life, constantly pumped into your brain through ever-present screens.
And even as the digital world implodes, it's still making strides into invading the physical. Constant monitoring, constant pressure to be "on", and the constant elbowing in on strangers' personal spaces continues unabated. It isn't getting any better.
And, once again, this is before we get into the flood of AI Content, mass censorship, or the slow death of social media platforms at the same time as local communities have all but vanished. Everybody is sick of the state of things, but they're going to stick around where they hate to be as long as they can, because there's nowhere else to go.
The truth is that all this is happening because we don't really care anymore. The despair of the '00s lead to the madness of the '10s, which lead to the cracking and breaking that is the '20s. At the rate we're going, the internet will not last into the '30s, an amazing feat for something that was once taught to be eternal. Now it probably won't outlive any of us, at least not in any kind of useable state.
So why do we refuse to reassess our situation? Why do we continue to live in a world that no one seems to want? Why do we refuse to admit the mistakes we made that lead us to this very position we are in today and look for a better course forward? Perhaps it might be that no one has an answer, but it seems more likely that we all know what to do but we are unable to make the move to do it. It's mainly that no one believes they have anywhere else to go. Bowling Alone became real, as it was destined to, and the only way to reverse it is with a lot of effort to rebuild local communities and actually offer something better, something we once had and squandered.
Until then, enjoy the slop future of the internet. There isn't any other place it can go as long as we live our everyday lives virtually and our virtual lives as if they are our everyday ones. Whatever comes next after that is a mystery for the ages, but it won't be this.
What can we do but hope for something better? At some point we have to want more than constant Fantasy. Here's hoping we don't take too long to figure it out.
In other news, I have a story in the upcoming Mistcreek Tales called "Lightning Jim". The only thing I will say is that if you enjoyed Y Signal, you might want to check this one out. It's the first in a new series of shorts I'm working on, and these are going to be really out there. I'll talk more about it when the new anthology drops on August 4th.
I also started a new non-fiction book over on the Patreon called Fantasy Isn't Real, so if you enjoyed The Pulp Mindset and The Last Fanatics, I recommend checking that one out. While the other two are more focused on the present and the past respectively, this one is aiming towards the future. See what I mean by signing up for the Patreon today!
That's all for this week. Have yourself a good one until next we meet!
We've been talking about the Dead Internet for awhile, and now we can perceive the form of our destructor. The end of the internet is in view. It might not be tomorrow, but it is coming, and probably sooner than you might think.
Today's subject is a multipart series to show exactly what is happening. ClownfishTV usually spends their time speaking of pop culture news and whatnot, but some of their videos have also been focusing on the growing trend of megacorps slowly strangling the digital space while everyone is busy focusing their time on other issues. The above video focuses on the largest 20 year old video website that basically defined the era of modern media we live in. We are, of course, talking about YouTube. The company that helped create an alternative to dying mass media is now attempting to dismantle it and run roughshod over what made the internet what it was to begin with.
They have become what the once claimed to offer an alternative to.
As is well documented, from the time YouTube was created, it quickly became the site that defined how the video medium would be presented for generations to come. Before the '00s were over, Blockbuster and Cable TV were already on the way out, soon to replaced on the site itself by a slew of different styles from documentaries to original songs to political debates to, eventually, even livestreams, and news. The old paradigm had been completely destroyed. By the 2020s, videos were defined by YouTube's format, and no one would argue with that.
But those dying news corpos, movie and TV studios, Hollywood, and just about every big party in the old media space has hated how instrumental sites like YouTube were in weaning the public off of the mainstream that had detested them for decades, and have been dying to squash alternatives and become top dog again. And as the video above has shown, they are working overtime to do just that. They want the terrible old paradigm back, and the owners of the new spaces are letting it happen. These shambling dinosaurs (somehow) have lots of money behind them, after all.
It is not just YouTube, either. Make no mistake, they want the entire internet crippled, which will eventually destroy it. They are well on their way to getting it, too.
The second video I wanted to present is what is going on with Google, the world's largest search engine. But make no mistake, it is not just about Google. Every search engine is currently compromised and being demolished as you are reading this.
It did not start with YouTube! This is an issue that has been going on for some time, and does not appear to be stopping anytime soon.
Google Search was first casualty of their play, in the process breaking just about every search engine out there from selling your information to deliberately hobbling certain search terms. It has gone from being highly accurate two decades ago to being unusable today. This is the fate of what was once seen as the immortal internet.
The fall of Google and YouTube has been long documented, but what is gearing up to replace them? That is the main question. What is the purpose in all of this? If it was to gain control of the levers of power in the former Wild West space it is being done in the most incompetent way possible, and will eventually lead to the destruction of the very websites that form a large portion of how the online space worked. It's all going to be decimated.
While bots and studio plants have been a problem for a while, the advent of AI learning has made the issue explode all over in a more dramatic fashion. If anything, this has only accelerated the end of the internet that is obviously on the way.
But of course, it doesn't stop there. It has also spread to areas meant for discussion. Yes, even those have been neutered and rendered even more artificial.
For the final piece we are taking a look at, this one is on the meltdown of the last real news aggregate forum, Reddit, and how it has been infested with bots and glowies (unironically) in a last bid to finally break the system down. Reddit has always been a negative influence on online discussion and it has been made considerably worse.
This mirrors how many old BBS message boards would eventually get so flooded with spam that they would simply not be able to operate at all. The difference in the two is now they've learned to weaponize AI in a way that is trained on human behavior to blend it in better. The AI is now trained on the very behavior of the people they hope to fool.
In other words, the more you act like an NPC the more you become indistinguishable from the very bots themselves. Considering the climate of discussion we currently already have on social media sites, this makes them a prime tool to push for engagement. It is only going to make these site worse and more useless.
If you've used any social media in the past year, and you almost certainly have, you have seen this decline in usability first hand. It is not going to get better, and as the internet is flooded with more and more junk, and the human junk becomes just is as unrecognizable as the AI algorithm junk, people are going to begin turning away from the entire mess, simply because there is no other choice. Eventually there won't be any way to engage with humanity at all. We're nearing the end of the road for this once eternal space.
The internet is winding down, and it is a strange site to see. It is unknown how much time remains, it could even be longer than one might think even based on the above information, but it is definitely going to happen in our lifetimes. The internet is not forever, like was thought to be common knowledge even five years ago. The wild west we once marveled at is tamed and currently being broken in. The digital space is very much heading towards that cliff and its speed is only picking up, oblivious of what is coming ahead.
So what does all this mean? Not much, in the long run. It doesn't change what has to be done with what time we have left. Create, share, converse, and do it for the Good, for as long as you can. We have to break through Cultural Ground Zero before the rotting zombie of the 20th century attempts to drag us back into the grave once again.
The internet isn't forever, but that shouldn't stop us from doing what we need to do. We have to use every opportunity we have for as long as we have it. Do what you've have to do, same as always! Just be aware of what is lurking on the path ahead.
That's it for this week, and I will see you again soon. I've got some projects to get to. I promise they will be worth the wait!
Much has been said over the years about how the entertainment industry is currently suffering. Much has been written about how those on the inside, including actors actors and unions have destroyed both themselves and their credibility. However, I'm not sure there is a direct and obvious example to point to in order to really nail down the trend.
Until now.
I've mentioned this before in works like The Last Fanatics, and I'll say it again here. There is a certain breed of person that gets into the arts and entertainment not because they wish to connect with others but in order to put themselves at a higher class over them. A long time ago you could get past this for several reasons. The mainstream being the only viable choice and having a monopoly, putting yourself at the head of subcultures by weaseling your way through and saying the right platitudes, and the old favorite of simply buying credibility (like Bethesda saying they invented the First Person Shooter), were all popular choices.
However, it doesn't work anymore. Not in a fractured culture where no one really belongs anywhere unless your personality is to consume or to listen to people who consume more than you or to obey the company throwing its consumers pet treats every now and then. Too many people see this and have turned away, and the the ones with the power either don't notice it or are too far deep up their own rears to realize the problem. As a result, it all just implodes on itself.
Take the recent Writer's Strike, the strike you had to support no matter what or else you hated art. Remember that one? You weren't allowed to question what the terms really were, or how it benefited you as someone outside the industry, customer or artist yourself, or even if it was all just for show. As I covered in an earlier post, it was all more or less a shadow play. And with today's example you're about to see it unfold for what it is.
You will also see where the more recent vitriol around voice actors comes from. Again, it didn't fall from the sky. See how they involved themselves in this and only made themselves even more disliked by the people they are supposed to entertain. Lies, ego, unreality, and hate, are all plentiful, all to fight a cause that shouldn't threaten them in the first place. However it does because the audience have been pushed against them and they have to choose a side. Obviously, their employer is going to come first, but many don't want to accept it. These aren't valiant warriors doing battle for the Cause, they just want to look noble while making money.
All of this combines to make an industry of people that customers simply don't want to support. And, increasingly, they're not. The only way to turn this around is to overturn everything as it is. Unfortunately for them, it's looking less and less likely that it's ever going to happen. Not when there are too many alternate options.
Regardless, watch the above video and discover more details of the strike you were not supposed to know (because they didn't think anyone would bother looking) and understand just how little those in charge think of you. If you didn't know it before, you'll sure learn it now.
That's all for this week! June's here and summer is on the way, and with it, hopefully, the heat. We've got a lot coming to be excited for!
It's been a bit of a weird couple of weeks, and I've spent it in a little bit of shock. This is mostly because I did not realize how much the entertainment industry has deteriorated behind the scenes in such a short time. It's actually amazing to look at, and I wanted to share some of what I've seen today. (Hat tip to Pipkin Pippa and her viewers for some of this knowledge. Their ability to discover cringe kino remains undefeated.)
We've talked a little about what slop is and why it's here, but I don't believe we discussed how it's going to be like living through the era of entertainment its going to bring forth. Long story short, it's going to be around longer than you'd prefer. It's going to change everything, while changing absolutely nothing at the same time. To explain how will take a bit.
For a good summation of how things are now check out the above video. It isn't going to stop there, either. Just as we've accepted deteriorating standards in entertainment over the years, we're eventually going to accept the very things we used to laugh at as parodies on old Mad TV and other sketch shows of the 20th century as normal. It's not just a joke anymore. Now it's real.
Do you want to see what entertainment is going to become? Watch the video below. Do not skip around, do not stop early, and do not turn down the volume: give yourself the true experience of the future and watch the entire thing. This is the exact product the industry has been striving to fashion for decades as it normalizes lowering standards in both creativity and production quality. This is the future of slop.
This isn't a joke. There's no punchline here. It isn't a parody channel or an old sketch from when comedy shows were relevant. This is a real channel with over a quarter of a million subscribers on YouTube, and this is the level of content they produce. This video is only one example of it.
The channel in question isn't alone, either. There are plenty of others, some of which make similar product based on web novels that span hundreds of chapters. Yes, authors are also responsible for the state of things as they are. We can't just excuse it with the desire to "get paid" when we are contributing to things like the above existing and being normalized. Creating is about more than just making money. There isn't any attempt at connection here, just trope lists checked off (or subverted!) to give the audience the bare minimum to swallow before moving on to the next thing on their playlist. It's deliberately designed to be forgotten.
We don't want to admit it, but this is the future of the entertainment industry. We are pushing towards this every day we accept a Borderlands movie or an Avatar sequel. Accepting the bare minimum is not making anything better, and we know this, but we don't seem to want to do anything about it. We've been trained to excuse a downhill slide as an all or nothing proposition, as if the people in charge own us lock, stock, and barrel.
This is the future we chose.
And to be honest, it might be too late to do anything about it now. The genie is fully out of the bottle. It isn't about AI: it's what lead to AI being used in the first place. No one actually cares as long as it gets them their content faster. That's a truth we have to accept, and one we've allowed become reality. It can't be escaped. It has to be faced.
I'm not kidding. Here is the only comment on the above video:
This is the future of mainstream entertainment.
We all know this, even if we won't say it out loud. It's a completely avoidable future, but it requires the sort of effort we simply do not wish to engage in. That is what makes it inevitable. The slop future is just ahead.
I wish I had a more positive end result to tell you, but we all know this is the end of this road. It doesn't go in any other direction than this one. All we can do is push for more and support those who wish to do as much. At the end of this road lies normalized slop, and it's getting closer every day. Letting Hollywood take your money is not going to fix it.
In fact, they will make it even worse. They already are.
Unfortunately, that's just the way it is now. Who knows what the future holds from this point forward, but it will only change if we push to change it ourselves. Simply waiting for the old dying industries to wake up is a losing game. We either more forward together, or this continues, and the slide down into the slop only becomes more pronounced.
The future is up to us, so lets build it together. We have to work forward to create something else: a new way forward. I believe we can do it, together.
Have yourself a fruitful Easter and I'll see you again soon!
Welcome to the weekend! It's the last go around for 2024!
For the last Weekend Lounge post of the year I wanted to introduce you to the Cannon Cruisers YouTube channel. This one isn't actually run by me, but my co-host, and, as a result has a more modern look than the rest of our channels. It's not up to date, but the channel will be slowly updated as we have the time.
It's another alternative to check out the Cannon Cruisers, if that's the kind of thing you're interested in. We talk old b-movies, discover old classics (and not-so classics), and have a lot of fun along the way. We've been doing it for over half a decade at this point, surprising both of us. What started as a lark turned into a long term side project for both of us. I don't think we'll be stopping anytime soon. There's plenty to go over.
We've covered over 300 movies since we started, by the way. You can peruse what we covered on our Letterboxd page here.
Uploads on the YouTube channel are not our first priority right now, so if you want to keep up I highly recommend going straight to the blog itself. It was the first place we set up camp and I make sure to update it every week or when there's a new episode up.
As always, check out the Cannon Cruisers if you like or are interested in old movies and want some fun.
Completely unrelated to that, I was recently fooling around with AI music again, and concocted the following EP. It is related to a writing project I've been slowly trying to puzzle out of my end of the year brain.
The idea was to create an EP that matched the weird dour tone at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s before 9/11 or even Columbine really changed the mood permanently. I specifically chose third wave ska to do this with because of how much the genre changed over the decade and I wanted to see if I could push it in a different direction than it went in reaction to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the resulting Clear Channel monopoly which more or less banned it and other genres of the time from the radio. So it's an oddly reflective piece on endings since there was a lot of that as we were leaving the 1900s behind at the time.
In other words, I wanted to grab a mood that existed with a sound that didn't. Where could it have gone if things went differently? Who knows. I tried to puzzle it out here. It was an interesting little project to try out because I could almost imagine it existing, even though it didn't. and in retrospect it's kind of eerie, which I suppose was the point.
The album starts with the skate-punk inspired sound the decade started with before changing over the course of the album to being more in line with the more confident style it had by the end of the 90s when it broke into the mainstream. Where could it have gone after this, we'll never know. It was cast out of the club and most of the bands either abandoned the style or deliberately went insular, crashing the genre in the '00s.
This is a bit of a what-if, I guess.
As for how it relates into my writing, well, you probably won't see that for awhile, but a lot of it is based on a story cycle I've had in my head for awhile and have been trying to write down for about as long. So if you see lyrical motifs or lines show up in stories later on, you'll know where they first showed up. It's been strange cobbling this together. I've never quite done anything like this before, so it's been strange figuring it out.
But, really, just have fun with it. Enjoy the music, download it, remix it, or ignore it. Love it, hate it, or be indifferent. Whatever you want. It's a bit of an experiment to help me with inspiration for something else, so it's all meant in good fun. Don't take it too seriously!
Enjoy the Northbound Lights, a band that might or might not have existed from an era long gone that increasingly few remember. There's always something we can learn from those forgotten days. In this case, I don't know. I just felt like doing something strange and off the wall. You can find the End of the Century EP for free here. It might be a bit different than you're expecting, especially if you only know the genre from its oft-mocked tropes.
And that's all for this week!
Enjoy the last week of the year and I will see you soon enough!
"And things are automatic when you see them everyday,
Is it the same routine, or just some fucked up dreams,
That keep you walking, mindless all the way."
*Note: Today's post was originally posted on the Patreon! Join to get early posts on top of podcast episodes and new book serializations!*
Have you ever stopped to wonder why things get made at all? At some point it feels as if we forgot the reason for many things, and why the people who came before us made them, and now we're stuck doing it because We're Supposed To, only faster, dumber, and in more pointless ways. As if we're just filling space because that's all we can do.
That's kind of a depressing thought, but it's one I keep mulling on, especially when I hear complaints of soullessness in the art and entertainment world from people who excuse exactly that every other day and have done so for decades. Every problem we work through today isn't the fault of those who came before or those who created these systems. It comes from those of us who have forgotten the Why in everything we do.
And we don't want to admit this dead end we're reaching was totally avoidable the entire time. Changing course just meant abandoning every poor decision made for decades, and admitting we were wrong. Good luck with that. This is all our own fault.
So you've probably heard the news by now. The AI apocalypse is here and we're all going to die. Art is over now that anyone can type in a few prompts in a generator and get what they need to be satiated. The sanctity of art and creation is finished because machines can do it all for nothing. It's time to hang it up and go home.
This is the current atmosphere of the world of art and entertainment now, buoyed by people who kicked up no fuss the entire time they made their way to this end state they supposedly hate so much while supporting every decision that led to this moment. Now because it might infect some billionaires in a city that hates art and meaning on principle, it's suddenly a real problem. We need to make things illegal! We need to fine and harass people into complying with our betters! We need to combat automation and soullessness in art!
But none of this is happening, and it's never happened. There is no putting the genie back in the bottle when you don't even know how long ago it was let out.
We let it happen
I watched the Telecommunications Act of 1996 happen which allowed Clear Channel to own radio. No one said or did anything as popular music was destroyed by this idiocy, just as they said nothing when auto-tune allowed corporations to bypass talent to put their own replaceable automatons on the charts instead. This was not a change that improved art.
I watched HD rob us of hundreds of talented game developers and studios because now they needed to sell millions just to break even. Nobody complained because they got their shiny graphics, even if the games became shallower and more automated. This was not a change that improved art.
I watched CG take over movies, leading to a uniform bland fake-computer image slathered over every film. Countless talented stuntmen and practical effects creators were thrown aside for sterile computer images. This happened at the same time sound mixing and acting all sunk into the grey goo of conformity. This was not a change that improved art.
I watched animation move to computers because it was "easier" and decades later no one can make a movie that looks as good as Akira or Secret of NIMH and we're supposed to ignore that truth because they can sometimes look like HD PS2 cutscenes instead. As long as we get our 9 millionth take off of Shrek with the same character designs, choppy animation, and low effort subversive snark "humor" somehow that's good enough to spout the empty catchphrase "Animation is cinema" when it has never been less cinema in its entire existence. This was not a change that improved art.
So my question is as follows: if you didn't care years ago when all of these mediums were being beaten down and flattened into conformity for corporations' ease of use, leading to what was already a factory belt-line production of effective automation . . . why do you care now?
This was always going to end here. We kept telling them it was okay, what right do we have to tell them to stop now? Why didn't we say anything earlier?
It's because we never cared about the art itself: we cared about consuming it quicker. All we wanted was more. More of what, exactly, didn't matter.
Computers have already been misused for decades to make art production easier (for the people in charge to manage) instead of smoother. They were originally sold as being able to assist artists in making what they were already making, just with less obnoxious distractions which would allow them to take less time and carry less of a load. And, as well all, know, this is not what happened at all. Was it supposed to destroy practical effects, passion, creativity, 2D art, entire genres, and make everything into one giant homogenized mud-genre meant for mass consumption by a people who otherwise no longer have anything in common with each other except what they consume?
Is this really it?
If that is the case, then why is this worth fighting for? Who cares about art made deliberately to remove the humanity from it, to fulfill a concocted outdated formula that hasn't been relevant since the twin towers falling was still fresh news? Why are we even consuming these things to begin with? To what end? What exactly is a computer going to take away at this point that we haven't already let them take away from us?
There already isn't anything left. We gave it away ages ago for automation, long before computers were even a factor. We did this because we wanted it this way.
What "art" is being defended by taking a stand against AI? I hate to break it to you but the large corpos and Hollywood are already using it. They were the first to use it and they're going to keep using it. You can get mad at an author for using an AI-generated logo for his first novel but that's not going to stop Tor Books from using AI-generated floating spaceships on their boring modern covers. But the latter, as they have been for the last quarter century, will continue being excused while those just trying to get by will be scrutinized.
It happens all the time.
This isn't AI, but what would change in this situation if it was?
And, again, I hate to repeat this, but the reason this stuff is accepted is because we've accepted every change they made solely because we just want to be left alone to consume product. We've slowly lost our standards as to to what the purpose of art even is, as long as its repeating shopworn catchphrases and Current Year phrasing we can consume it proudly, call others names if they aren't consuming it, then move on to the next corpo product we are designated to worship. That's all it is now. There is no depth or ambition in any of it.
In this climate, what does automation even imply? Automation from what? Outdated genres, tired ideas, and safe content from corporate approved creatives who will lecture you if you don't support the machine? I hate to break it to you, but they're already on auto-pilot to begin with. They already have nothing to say. A machine prompt that they then tweak without saying it out loud won't make any appreciable difference in what they do.
It's because they have nothing to say in the first place.
This is what is so frustrating about the current AI hullabaloo. It is getting mad at students not hiring professional voice actors for free college projects that aren't monetized in the first place. It is screaming at shitposters making memes instead of badly editing existing art for free. It is grinding your teeth as Normie Joe puts in a couple of prompts to slap together a joke song to send to his friends. This is the sort of thing that attracts the most ire: not a megacorp creating entire opening sequences with it to cheap out on paying their already existing employees. The only explanation as to why this exists is because we no longer even know what we're doing with art anymore.
None of the above earlier examples take anything away from "real" art. In fact, it frees up artists from wasting their time and ability from doing the bare minimum (artists not having to live off porn commissions is a good thing) and are instead allowed to focus on improving their craft and finding something to say that isn't just repeating the talking points from their favorite streamer or news source. In contrast, a corporation generating an entire opening sequence to get the product out the door faster shows they don't even have a reason for said opening existing in the first place. AI or not, there was never any attempt at art here in the first place.
Instead of raging at normal people using tools to make throwaway pieces of content for fun, perhaps standing up to corporations who not only have the means to do better, but refuse to, is a better use of our time? After all, they are the ones who lowered standards in the first place, and even found ways to turn consumers against patrons with their own brand of insipid insults like "toxic fanbase", "x-ist, y-cel fans", and whatever else low IQ kindergarten name-calling they can use to explain why not consuming corporate slop is evil.
It's been over eight years since Patton Oswalt insulted James Rolfe for not being interested in a terrible looking movie that flopped because it was terrible, and nothing has still changed on this front. No one could even explain why the movie should exist to begin with without checking of a list of tropes they wanted to subvert. It's nonsense.
To be extremely blunt, the reason the proliferation of AI is an overall good thing is because it no longer allows mediocrity to be held up as genius when anyone can just automate their own mediocrity instead. Artists have to be held to a higher standard, and some people do not like that. Artists who adapt, who use these tools right, and who focus instead on rising above what a machine can do, have absolutely nothing to worry about. Why would they: a machine cannot copy originality and high quality. That goes against the purpose of something being automated in the first place.
We both deserve and need this to happen, because, at this juncture, it's the only way to finally snap us out of those dull haze we've been stuck in for far too long. We need to finally start looking up again. There is more to life than this.
I know you've probably heard all this before, I'm not saying anything all that new new, but I think it needs to be kept in perspective as to why the old industries are currently dying and why newer ones are springing up in their places. It isn't due to AI--it is due to what allowed AI to spring to life in the first place. Focus on the real reason this is happening, not the end result. To do otherwise would be missing the forest for the trees.
AI is not going away. You don't have to like it, but you're going to have to accept it. We're also going to have to handle it better than this:
Anyone who can be replaced by AI, should be. It's really that simple.
The whole purpose of art is to bare your soul and stretch yourself to connect to others in a way that only you as an individual can. If a machine can replicate that then it can't be all that special to begin with.
This is the end result of wanting to make everything automatic. It was never going to end any other way.
I don't want this piece to come off as mocking or insulting, but as more of a chance to stand reevaluate where we're heading and, for the first time in my existence on this planet, to try and stop letting things decay--to finally move forward in the correct direction. That is part of the reason I'm doing all of this, after all. I want to contribute to a better world, not a dying one. I've already watched the decay of all the above industries happening in real-time over the decades, and I will no longer be a part of that.
Thankfully, I'm not going to have to be.
The solution is to finally put things in their place and to strive for more than mediocrity--to stop accepting decay as normal and The Way Things Are. No, it's not normal, and it's not the way things have to be. It's only normal if you let it be, and we don't have to do that anymore. With the creation of some many independent and small creator-owned spaces now, you have an endless sea of options before you. Why would you ever want to stay on a sinking ship?
At the end of the day, there is no AI apocalypse and nothing is getting worse that hasn't already been allowed to get worse for decades. No, instead this is a wake up call and a signal for us to finally take a new path forward.
What we need instead is hope for the future, and I think we have more reason to feel confident for a new path now more than ever before.
The only thing that's dying is the old ways, and in this case it's more than earned. We've got much better things to look forward to, and it's about time.
