There’s going to be a few little changes in how I write. But let me set the scene first.
Social media, “content” as entertainment, is entering its end-game.
A race to the bottom to compete with TikTok means everything is short-form video now. Which makes the sh*tstorm of 160-character debates on Twitter look like child’s play.
It’s not just you. The Internet Is Now Sh*t.
AI1I prefer to say LLMs, as AI is such a weasel word when what we’re talking about specifically is Generative AI. But “AI” flows so much better in this polemic, so AI it is. has destroyed our sense of reality in cyberspace. (Pre-2022, at least when you were trolled, catfished, or scammed, it was a person. Now it’s a bot).
And the make-more-sh*t-to-out-compete-others-who-make-sh*t-and-do-it-faster means there is just a flood of utter vapid sh*t.
(Also, the algorithms pushing everyone to the knowledge graph, rather than the social graph, means “content creators” are getting rewarded less and less).
At least cat videos used to be real cats. Now they’re just an AI model trained on cat videos.
And whether it’s because people who should know better, are using AI, or whether we’re all just inadvertently reading AI-generated articles—the insights, hot takes, we used to get in non-fiction content2FYI I hate the word “content”, but I’m using it here, because it gets the point across. are just stale and synthetic—and sh*t.
Below is from Brad Stulberg, author of The Way of Excellence, former contributor to Sports Illustrated, and current contributor to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. So he’s, y’know, a pro.
Watch from 7:36 to 10:35. If you prefer to read, like me, the transcript is below. Note: it hasn’t been edited, so it reads like the video.
Brad Stulberg: And the suggestions were also the same style and tone and synthetic feel to what I was reading in other people’s work who I noticed had gotten pretty sloppy. And I’m just like just just stop just give me the freaking grammar errors. And it got to a point where it was just annoying like uninteresting and annoying. Um, and you know, for as much as I have challenges when I ask my wife to to edit my work for grammar and spelling because she’s an attorney and she catches everything and sometimes I don’t make the changes she suggests, I’d much rather be annoyed with my loving human wife than with a robot. So, I’ve essentially stopped using AI for everything.
Cal Newport: Right. And and you’re seeing the opposite in in in the world of online content, which you see, you’re seeing the opposite. You’re seeing quality degrading. You’re seeing sharpness of ideas flattening. You’re seeing telltale signs of slop. I mean, every time I talk to you, you’re a little bit depressed about the state of online discourse. But for people out there who don’t aren’t reading a lot online, what is it that you’re seeing happening around you by, you know, sort of our peer group of of writers?
Brad Stulberg: Well, I think our peer group of writers. I mean that broadly mainly like people, not our friends in general. Yeah, writers in general and I think not even writers, I think people that want to be writers that were never really serious about the craft of writing and that’s worth separating. The writing is just completely homogenized and soulless.
Cal Newport: Yeah.
Brad Stulberg: Like everything sounds the same. Everything has the same structure. Everything has the same rhythm. Everything has the the simple declarative. It’s not this. It’s that short sentence interspersed at the same intervals. Um, everything has these really fluffy metaphors that again at first seem fascinating and then you continue reading and thinking about it and you’re like this is this is just a house of cards. Like there’s nothing underneath this metaphor. This is like something trying to sound smart. I heard our mutual friend Derek Thompson put it this way which is the AI robots feel like every sentence they write has to be more evocative than the last sentence.
And that’s just not good writing. It’s it’s like weird synthetic writing. So I think that’s happening. And then another thing that I think is happening is that it is degrading the experience of writing itself. Like part of what makes good writing good is that the person struggled to produce it because in that struggle the best ideas come out. The best way to deliver those ideas come out. The best um the best work comes out through struggle. And the click of a button in picking and choosing what you want is not the same kind of struggle as actually writing. And I think as a result of that, you can produce a lot more work, but the quality of the work goes down and the quality of your life, the quality of your experience with the craft goes down, right?
In short: a form I love, essays-as-content-or-blogging-whatever-classification-works-for-you.
Is.
Getting.
Sh*t.
Like you, I’ve been watching this for a while.
Before the TikTok and the AI sh*show, algorithms rewarding virality, novelty, and engagement, and a race to improve engagement quarter by quarter were breeding a quagmire of online filth.
The consequences: audience capture, coupled with vanity, and ego were making some really smart people really dumb, tribal, and toxic.
(Man. J.K. Rowling’s3I have, and I’m still trying my best to watch this all from a distance, because it’s very complicated seeing someone you respect engage in behaviour you find incredibly distasteful (to say the least). However, it’s not just J.K. Rowling. I followed Elon Musk’s tweets from 2014 (I had alerts on) until 2017, when I switched them off for reasons I couldn’t explain (probably because it was a weird thing to do in the first place). The same for David Heinemeier Hansson. There are numerous books written on and around this issue, but to put it bluntly – being on social media a lot rots your brain and can make you an a**hole. tweets apart are an art project waiting to happen).
But why did I share all of that?
Because I’m about to start writing (hopefully) more good sh*t and sharing it openly, but I don’t want to fall into the trap many very well-intentioned4Slightly ignorant hot take but that has some background research: Do you know what Jordan Peterson was all about before he became one of the fault lines in the gender culture wars? The guy just wanted to talk about the importance of religion and a sense of mythology in our individual and communal well-being. I’m not defending him (I’ve never engaged or been interested in his stuff), but his descent into madness began with good intentions. But they do say that’s what the road to hell is paved with. writers do as the algorithm f***s up their brains and they become as dumb as Neanderthals5DHH, if in some incredibly unlikely scenario, you somehow read this, then please don’t go sheepdog on me. Look, I respect you. Your way of thinking about technology platform layers has massively influenced how I view the world. I appreciate that Scandinavia in general has a complicated history and relationship with immigration. But Britain and Denmark share a cultural background, which you appreciate, and our damn island’s history from ~800AD to today is partly the way it is because Danes intermixed with the British population. It’s a base layer platform of English cultural identity..
First off—to every single person who has sent me encouragement, given me feedback, came back and read more, told me IRL about my words—from the heart—thank you.
No, truly, thank you. It pushes me to improve, to be less afraid of being seen to fail (the true fear, not failure itself).
So, thank you.
Secondly, changes.
A lot of stuff I’ve made has been a “shout to the void”. A release of frustration at a lack of thought on very serious sh*t, and a, perhaps, small change we could all make to stop all the tiny little contributions to our current cultural sh*tshow.
However, I’m slightly moving on from that. I want to tell beautiful stories that hit you where you’re not expecting, and which maybe have a greater impact than whatever I was doing before.
So, what does that mean?
Theheasman.com is going to be getting a lot more love. I’ve been building it slowly over years, and I’m now ready to move in.
Any “shouts into the void” or quick hot takes will go into this section: short stories.
On mobile, you can scroll to the bottom or…
Click the main menu and go to “Short Stories”.
Big beautiful visual essays like The Odyssey Was Written For Sailors, and other data journalism will be on the front page.
Leaving the Private Nest
It’s time to leave the private account nest.
While social media is sh*t—it’s still one of the best ways to promote your writing.
I’ll be playing the writing-as-carousel-game on this public account to promote my sh*t.
During the transition, I’ll still post stories on my private Instagram, but that’s going to happen less and less.
But if you’re looking for that next “oh sh*t I didn’t think of it this way” hot-take, maybe give that account a follow.
Oh. And the carousels will link to theheasman.com
Swipe or click right through the slideshow.
But wait, I just did a whole spiel about social media being sh*t, and here I am announcing a brand new account?
A public Instagram is only one of the channels I’m investing in. Those who are connected with me on LinkedIn know I post there. I’m also diversifying to the fediverse (if you know what that is)—but a photo-based equivalent. Way less reach, but at least it doesn’t have all the corporate bullsh*t associated with Meta.6Read The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow for more on how Meta enjoys a lack of interoperability, and why that means they’ve monopolised social media, which has made your online life really sh*t.
I’m also cooking something up with my email newsletter.
I’m keeping a tight lid on it for now. But suffice it to say—I’m creating the sort of thing that would make me reach for social media less, and my email more.
Those are the changes
In short:
- Social media is getting sh*t.
- I want to write more.
- But I don’t want to get dragged down into the filth.
So I’m writing more on my website.
Therefore:
- I’m writing less on Instagram.
- But I still need to promote my writing.
- Hence, I’m creating a public Instagram.
- I’m also diversifying the channels I use to promote my website writing.
- And I’m investing more into my email newsletter.
What this means for you
- Subscribe to my email newsletter if you really like my sh*t and want to support it.
- If not, give my public Instagram a follow.
What you can expect
Over the next few weeks, you can expect:
- A quick data-journalism-as-memoir over the UK jobs market.
- A “shout to the void” at my long-running scepticism over Substack.
- And maybe a rant against AI that I spent weeks on at the beginning of 2026 and have kept in my drafts folder, because I’m terrified that clicking publish is career suicide.
Peace.