the oppressive emptiness of flawless communication
mourning the lost art of words that mind their own business
Yes, AI helped. Yes, I know how that looks here. This is how I use it.
Something’s been happening to me for a while whenever I read online, something I suspect a lot of you can relate to. I’ve come to call it “the flinch”, and it happens faster than you realize.
Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s not. This time it’s a tutorial I clicked on for something I actually wanted to learn.
So I start reading, and I notice the piece itself is fine. The grammar’s nice and clean, the argument’s pretty sensible, and yet something keeps pulling my eyes back to the top of the page, reflexively checking the byline to see if a human actually wrote it.
Eventually, I start to figure out what’s driving me nuts. Every sentence seems formed in such a way that it wants me to do or feel something. Not any specific thing, just something.
The more common term for this is “slop”. More specifically, “AI slop”.
I wanted to take some time to write about it instead of just labeling it, shaking my head, and moving on.
“Slop” used to be easy to spot. But now, even for a millennial who has honed his skills at avoiding fake download buttons, automatically ignoring sponsored search results, and closing pop-up ads with lightning-quick reflexes… that millennial suddenly finds himself assaulted from all angles by it, in places he doesn’t even expect.
So what does it look like?
One way is a coworker who used to write normally but seemingly transformed overnight into a writer for The Atlantic, filling every passage with “gotchas”, one-liners, and “zingers”.
Or suddenly, everyone’s speaking like they’ve discovered the fountain of youth or something. Tapestry. Unlock. Robust. Landscape. Shift.
People scattered em-dashes through their emails as though every dash were an FSA dollar and December 31st was tomorrow. (My take on the mark is that it isn’t really for anything, but at least when humans abuse it they’re enjoying themselves.)
Then people got smarter once they started getting called out. They told their models not to use “delve” or “landscape” or “robust.” They asked for em-dashes to be stripped out. A few even started telling the model to add deliberate typos. Except they still get caught all the time and can’t understand why, and it’s because they have a foundational gap in their own understanding of communication.
Allow me to explain.
An LLM is an amplifier. Point it at a clear signal and you get that same signal, but louder, clearer, and more well-defined.
But point it at noise and you get louder, more polished noise, noise that passes for signal without actually carrying much more value.
If you knew what you wanted to say, the model’s the fastest way you’ve ever had to say it, and if you didn’t, you just outsourced a sentence and got one back with extra paint on it. Either way the page fills itself, but the model has no idea what the page was for, because surprise, that was supposed to be your job.
the shape of an ask
You find this a lot on social media and news blogs. Something along the lines of this:
“Embarking on a Python journey can feel overwhelming, but with the right tools and mindset, you can transform your workflow and unlock your true potential as a developer. Let’s dive into the essential libraries every modern developer should know.”
Embarking. Transform. Unlock. True potential. Let’s dive in.
Notice what it does. Stakes blown up to “true potential” for a list of libraries. Reader flattered as “modern developer” before doing anything. Pulled forward by a hyperventilating “let’s dive in.” Bravo.
A normal, sane human writing this would just say what they meant:
“Here are five Python libraries I use almost every week.”
Of course, I am not naive. I know why the former is what people go with. Platforms like Twitter reward this level of engagement bait, and for whatever reason, it gets clicks. If this sort of thing annoys you, it is almost like the world is saying “That is fine, you are not the intended audience”.
Okay…I guess? But sure, let’s move on.
The next example is something I’ve seen before and is way, way worse, and doesn’t have the sugarcoating disguise of Twitter engagement to help make up for it.
“I am so deeply sorry for your loss. Losing a loved one is one of the most difficult experiences anyone can face, and I want you to know that your feelings are completely valid. Please remember that you are not alone, and reaching out for support during this challenging time is one of the strongest things you can do.”
But this is a condolence message. Someone died. Grief is supposed to be the one place the ad-copy voice shouldn’t be allowed. And yet people will send this exact paragraph without hesitation, absolutely and infernally convinced that they’ve said something meaningful.
“Most difficult experiences” inflates a death. Oh gee thanks, I thought this was going to be easy.
“Your feelings are completely valid” flatters before agreeing. Phew, I was about to apologize for them!
“Reaching out for support” is a CTA (call-to-action) aimed at someone in mourning. Great idea, let me file a ticket.
It resembles the marketing copy because marketing copy and social media engagement are what the LLM has been trained and reinforced on.
What a real person actually sends is something like: “Hey, I heard about your dad. I’m sorry. Tell me if you want company or want to be left alone. Either’s fine.”
The model has no idea that that’s all somebody needs to hear. Could you make it produce something that short? With the right prompting and guardrails, absolutely. But that assumes you actually realize that something’s wrong. The bar for “impressive” has dropped to “vaguely intelligent-sounding”. Most people would simply stop evaluating there. It sounds good enough and makes them sound smart.
Ironically, the message which contains the fewest words actually holds the most meaning.
everything, everywhere, all at once
Of course, persuasive prose isn’t new. Marketing’s been full of engagement bait since forever. For god’s sake, “copywriter” was and technically still is a real job. But what makes the difference now is sheer volume, and the fact that nowhere is too sacred anymore.
It’s the text that’s killing me. A single ad in a magazine is easy to ignore. Now it’s a model producing persuasion-shaped paragraphs faster than I can scroll, into every app I open. Yeah, sure, let me just grow another set of eyes. Ad space used to be somewhere specific, but now I’m drowning in it the moment I unlock my phone or go to a website.
Just…ponder for a moment the context in which you come into contact with this stuff. This sort of persuasive/convincing cadence used to stay relegated to specific places, like billboards, spam folders, and the middle ten minutes of YouTube videos (funny how so many YT videos are coincidentally just a few seconds longer than the minimum duration needed to monetize, huh?).
Now because of LLMs, it’s blended and congealed into code comments, condolence notes, tutorial intros, customer service replies, Slack posts, bedtime stories, whatever. There’s no place left where I can let my guard down.
And again, nowhere is this more prevalent than on Twitter and LinkedIn, where they pay you for engagement now, so the comment section is just somebody’s small business.
Somebody posts something that literally nobody’s arguing against, and like clockwork, ten replies show up calling the point so real, deeply valid, a real unlock, and yet not one godforsaken comment seems to add anything to the conversation.
Because they’re not supposed to add anything. They’re just trying to look like a reply that does, because that’s the reply that gets engagement, and engagement is the actual product. Their “personal take” on something is their brand. It’s the same shape as the AI prose, same shape as an ad, leaning toward an audience that didn’t ask and has long since stopped expecting better.
It’s just literary junk food, except not even the good kind. Like Carl’s Jr. chicken stars instead of McDonald’s chicken nuggets (Yes, I said it…fight me.)
All that junk food has taken a major toll on me. I don’t read the way I used to. I used to sink into prose, let it carry me, get absorbed into it. Now I’m scanning for “the angle” before I’ve finished the first paragraph.
Is this trying to sell me something? Like I can barely focus on the content because I’m sitting there wondering if it’s even worth reading.
Hell, even as I write and iterate on this essay that you’re reading, I’m sitting here thinking “wow, this kinda sounds like AI, doesn’t it?”
Am I trying to sell you on something here? I’m getting self-doubt just reading this sentence.
leaning inward
So what about the stuff that doesn’t want anything from me?
Well… it’s still out there.
Stack Overflow answers from someone who’s debugged this thing eight times and isn’t selling a course.
Old technical books where the publisher just got out of the way.
Reddit comments from people with unhealthy but extremely useful obsessions with finding the perfect washing machine.
So what actually separates the slop from the good stuff?
I think I’ve figured it out.
A persuasive piece leans outward, toward its audience, trying to get them to do or feel or believe something. You’re a target.
A sincere piece leans inward, into its subject, trying to understand it. You get to be part of the understanding, and go on the journey with the writer.
Basically, I think leaning outward is selling. Leaning inward is thinking.
Once you know the direction, the prose is easy to find if you look for it, but it’s never going to land in your feeds, because algorithms boost whatever leans outward.
But that inward voice…it’s still there, and so precious. The inward voice doesn’t try to climb the algorithm, it just sits there and waits for someone to need it. Which, incidentally, is why this site you’re on has no SEO, no trackers, no ads, no social buttons, no comments. That stuff is outward-facing, designed to grab your attention. This site just…is.
A blog that leans inward is (and no offense) not about you. If you’ve been paying attention to this essay, you know I mean that fondly.