2025 has been wild.
The internet has shifted massively, especially on social media and the overall social side of things.
Artists have become commoditised and the majority of us saw this coming (Writers of all types, painters, musicians etc)
The skills we’ve crafted for decades have now been sucked up into AI-land and turned into hot repeatable garbage.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
I wrote about a little thing called Visual Fatigue at the beginning of the year.
The TL;DR version = Due to AI and all the smooth brained operatives watering down imagery and writing. Our brains are getting exhausted at spotting the same repeated patterns visually and structurally from written POV. Luckily music hasn’t been affected as much just yet, but it’s getting there and video is hitting a melting pot where the unsettling uncanny valley is starting to turn people off completely.
Which is a good thing.
Studio Ghibli piss yellow image generations selling people’s crap have vanished and/or become numb to regular folk.
“It’s not this, it’s that” written structure is starting set people’s eyeballs on fire and honestly. I’m grateful for it.
Even though a lot of these structures were created by living and breathing meat puppets aka humans.
The actions of the few have ruined it for the many.
Sadly. I can’t fix it. Although I’ll try my damnedest to make people see it for what it’s really all worth.
But it leads me on to my next point.
The hail mary for us artists. Us creatives who refuse to let big tech truly screw up what makes us human.
You remember how a few years ago there was a resurgence for LP’s, cassette tapes and typewriters?
Well the resurgence for hand crafted, love infused and unwavering human content is being sought after and this is a really good thing…
If you were to sit down and truly write out why you got into whatever creative role you’re obsessed with. There will be a story to tell. The good, the bad and the heart wrenching agony all wrapped around it. You need to sit down and flesh it out in visceral detail. If you’re not laughing, crying or even sitting there somewhat ambivalent to it all. Then you’re not going deep enough.
Now you don’t have to start sharing that whole story in one go but you can infuse it into your content you’re putting out on social media.
While everything is still getting saturated by utter garbage. Your truth for lack of a better world will suck people in, who are looking for people who are being real.
That’s step one. The most important part.
Step two is to make buying your warez fun, easy and like an adventure while showing your customer/client that you actually give a shit. Why does this matter? Well you don’t need millions of clients and customers to do incredibly well, except now you need to create raving fans and who are genuinely addicted to what you do.
Maya Angelou said “People will never forget how you made them feel”
Make them feel like they belong in your world, that they are one of the many characters that allow you to continue to serve and create for them. Don’t idolise and put them on a pedestal, but make sure they know that you care. Most people fuck this up because I get that we need money to survive, but treating your customers/clients like dollar/pound signs = not good.
The benefit to doing it this way is that people will happily pay for your premium work. You’ll not have to publish your books on Amazon KDP for 99c just to get some eyeballs. You’ll be able to price your books at $27 as an example and they’ll happily buy it. You can release your music on Bandcamp and sell songs or albums at premium rates, and not have to worry if your $132 pay out from Spotify 1mil+ streams will hit your account. We’re not about the starving artist around this neck of the woods. We’re about being premium, baby.
But to do this. Those two steps are crucial. Those are the two steps that the majority of online marketing guru’s won’t tell you about, and if they did, they’d give you some watered down bullshit while shilling you some $997 course.
And the most important step of all which ties this all together, is step 3.
Which is to show up every day to the best of your ability. Yes, missing a day here and there won’t kill you, but people need that level of consistency.
It’s becomes almost parasocial (to a degree) when you do it right and that’s where the magic starts to compound.
Nail all of that?
And those 3 steps are what will carry you through 2026 while AI tech bros try and ruin everything else they get their filthy little clown hands on.
Stephen Walker.