spot on - why ive always had a sort of "day job" with my training business. helps me approach the creative work with the right long-term stance without needing to post sloptweets
Interestingly, a 2026 yahoo/yougov poll reports a major drop in GenZ influencer-aspiration (now only 5% from 57%). I guess the fatigue got to us faster than we thought.
On the money as always, Jack. Quality is superseding quantity, as it tends to do over the long run. I really enjoy creators like Kyla who post high-quality content less often. Scrolling through "slop" is an absolute waste of time, and eventually those audiences who are entertained by cheap thrills grow out of it due to getting older, busier, and more mature.
If you're going to create, create for longevity and substance.
Well articulated piece Jack. Several things you wrote remind me of Cal Newport. He advises aspiring artists or creators to lean into personal brand building on newsletters or other platforms that are not algorithmically driven.
On another note, I am surprised that you have social media on your phone. You are self aware enough to know how bad it is! Get Opal and block that stuff. Limit social media to computer or tablet use and your brainpower increases x9000
Short-form slop does not just reduce attention span.
It trains the system to confuse recognition with significance.
The more a platform rewards immediate legibility, the harder it becomes to tell whether something stayed with you because it mattered, or because it arrived in the right shape for the feed.
Most content is just noise. For someone you like or whose content speaks to you, maybe you'll let them yell a while. But the deluge of content has largely turned scrolling into a waste of time.
What exactly are we looking for? Break it down and you realise the answer devolves to "the next fix".
Really good food for thought here Jack. I started blogging shortly after Chat GPT, which is quite possibly the worst time to start. I don’t use Chat GPT to write, but because so many do, I feel like it’s possible that I’m written off (pun intended) at being just another Chat GPT think-piece writer
I’ve considered doing short-form YouTube reel videos where I narrate my best essays and overlay the charts. But also to your point, I should make good things for the sake of making good things. Regardless of whether or not anybody reads it. Really good stuff Jack 👏
Great stuff Jack. Casey is one of my favorite Youtubers as well. I think you suffer the same struggle of being caught between being a data-driven MBA and a creative like I do. The tension between optimizing for quantifiable results vs just following your curiosity and creating original content you're proud of that's interesting and valuable to others. Keep sticking with the latter and I'll for one always be here interested in your stuff!
spot on - why ive always had a sort of "day job" with my training business. helps me approach the creative work with the right long-term stance without needing to post sloptweets
Interestingly, a 2026 yahoo/yougov poll reports a major drop in GenZ influencer-aspiration (now only 5% from 57%). I guess the fatigue got to us faster than we thought.
On the money as always, Jack. Quality is superseding quantity, as it tends to do over the long run. I really enjoy creators like Kyla who post high-quality content less often. Scrolling through "slop" is an absolute waste of time, and eventually those audiences who are entertained by cheap thrills grow out of it due to getting older, busier, and more mature.
If you're going to create, create for longevity and substance.
Well articulated piece Jack. Several things you wrote remind me of Cal Newport. He advises aspiring artists or creators to lean into personal brand building on newsletters or other platforms that are not algorithmically driven.
On another note, I am surprised that you have social media on your phone. You are self aware enough to know how bad it is! Get Opal and block that stuff. Limit social media to computer or tablet use and your brainpower increases x9000
great post.
Short-form slop does not just reduce attention span.
It trains the system to confuse recognition with significance.
The more a platform rewards immediate legibility, the harder it becomes to tell whether something stayed with you because it mattered, or because it arrived in the right shape for the feed.
Most content is just noise. For someone you like or whose content speaks to you, maybe you'll let them yell a while. But the deluge of content has largely turned scrolling into a waste of time.
What exactly are we looking for? Break it down and you realise the answer devolves to "the next fix".
Really good food for thought here Jack. I started blogging shortly after Chat GPT, which is quite possibly the worst time to start. I don’t use Chat GPT to write, but because so many do, I feel like it’s possible that I’m written off (pun intended) at being just another Chat GPT think-piece writer
I’ve considered doing short-form YouTube reel videos where I narrate my best essays and overlay the charts. But also to your point, I should make good things for the sake of making good things. Regardless of whether or not anybody reads it. Really good stuff Jack 👏
The ai agents are attacking
Great stuff Jack. Casey is one of my favorite Youtubers as well. I think you suffer the same struggle of being caught between being a data-driven MBA and a creative like I do. The tension between optimizing for quantifiable results vs just following your curiosity and creating original content you're proud of that's interesting and valuable to others. Keep sticking with the latter and I'll for one always be here interested in your stuff!
Really good and 100% agree.
Wrote about some of these themes (through different angles and a longer time horizon) here: https://topofmind.beehiiv.com/p/the-infinite-curator
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