So I’ve been scooping around some of my notebooks where I’ve studied some classic works and poems.
Dante missed one when he mapped out the circles of hell.
He couldn’t have predicted the 10th circle…
The one we’re all being dragged into as we barrel toward 2026.
Welcome to the circle of AI marketing horseshit.
This is where humanity goes to die in a sea of uncanny valley bullshit.
This is where people who’ve never written a genuine sentence in their lives suddenly become “content creators” because they learned to prompt engineer their way to mediocrity.
Where every email, every post, every piece of “creative” work feels like it was churned out by the same soulless robo-rithm, optimised for engagement but devoid of any actual human fingerprints.
They’re all gargling on the balls of AI-Jesus, claiming skills they don’t possess, flooding the world with content that technically functions but feels as emotionally satisfying as eating cardboard. (I’ve tried eating carboard and yeah, it’s not fun or tasty)
Everything sounds the same. Everything feels manufactured. Everything lacks the beautiful imperfection that makes writing actually worth reading.
The 10th circle is essentially a place where heavily optimised copy that hits all the right psychological triggers lands, but has no pulse, no blood. No nothing at all.
But you can escape it in 2026…
Write true to yourself. Be raw. Be open. Be broken. Show the world all your warts and scars and fuck ups because that’s what matters and that’s where the real connections are formed.
Your humanity is your competitive advantage right now.
Your poetry, your bare naked soul, your willingness to bleed on the page. These are the things that AI can’t replicate, no matter how sophisticated it becomes.
Show up even when you want to give up. Even when you feel like crawling six feet underground and staying there. Show up especially then, because that’s when your writing has weight, when it carries the full burden of being human.
People don’t want perfect. They want real.
They want to be part of a world that feels lived in, not generated like some minecraft world.
They want to be indoctrinated into something genuine, something that pulses with actual blood instead of boring 1’s and 0’s.
I definitely don’t want to drown in that 10th circle and I’m sure as hell certain you don’t want to either.
The only way out is to be human.
That’s it.
Stephen Walker.