This is such a necessary reality check for anyone trying to make it as a writer right now. The taxonomy you've laid out is spot-on - I see all of these patterns playing out constantly, especially the tweet-to-think-piece pipeline and the discourse lifecycle you describe.
What strikes me most is how the shift from influence to reach has fundamentally changed what we're optimizing for. The old model where you could have outsized cultural impact with a smaller, engaged readership feels increasingly quaint. Now it's all about timing, audience targeting, and yes - shameless adaptation of what's already working.
Your point about the Gender Wars cycle is brilliant. You can literally watch these conversations repeat every few years with slightly different players, and whoever happens to be positioned right when the cycle comes around again gets credited as a visionary. It's like intellectual crop rotation.
The AI laundering thing is particularly insidious because it gives people plausible deniability. 'Oh, I just happened to have the same thoughts!' Sure, Jan. But honestly, the amount of content we're all expected to churn out makes some version of this almost inevitable. The treadmill is relentless.
I think you're right that adaptation beats bitterness, but damn if it doesn't sting sometimes. The writers who are thriving aren't necessarily the most insightful - they're the ones who best understand the game being played.
Great piece. As a Gen Xer I’ve seen this same dynamic play out at the 100,000 foot level since the late eighties. Similar trends over longer time scales.
80% of the reason I pay for the Bulwark is Jonathan Last, who writes the most uniquely insightful pieces in politics. It’s a rare skill. Maybe it’s because he rarely uses social media?
Yeah it’s depressing but politicians are becoming more and more like celebrities, with loyal fandoms who will never criticise them or even just expect them to do their jobs and they will defend them with tooth and claw. Wo betide anyone who has the temerity to ask even a slightly awkward question of said celeb-politician.
There’s an old saying - ‘Politics is show-business for ugly people’ & ‘they have a good face for radio’…. but don’t let their superfans hear you say that.
I like how you broke down the categories. And I mostly agree with it. I will say that I work in public policy, so there are a lot of political and cultural issues that people are often writing about at the same time and inevitably someone will write about the same topic you did.
But there are certain creators in my industry who do seem to borrow from others in a fairly egregious manner.
And I think they know exactly what they are doing.
As you said, it is what it is. I don’t know what I can do about it, but I can block those people and avoid them at all costs.
Personally as a reader and not a writer (and therefore uninterested in anyone's audience metrics) I'd like to see a lot more bitterness and yelling at the tides. I feel like people are embarrassed to hate everything now and it's made them lethargic.
I'm not saying it's the smart way to keep paying rent and get people to like you, just that most internet essayists are so careful and self-conscious I usually find myself wishing they would indulge in the occasional impulsive folly. Not in terms of feuds or stuff like that, necessarily, but just a general indifference to acclimating. Which is why I point out I'm not a writer, this is not an attitude geared towards getting writers money, friends, magazine gigs, satisfaction, or happiness, but to getting them to write more things I actually want to read.
The Maalvika situation reminds me a bit of what happened to James Somerton a while back.
I don’t think we should be super nit picky about people who happen to have the same idea, or somewhere along the line forgot what they read. (It’s a bit unrealistic to require someone to have a perfect log of everything.)
But, I do think it’s wrong when you intentionally try to present someone else’s idea as your own. Part of me wishes the internet had stronger norms around citation (or at least acknowledging the idea is not your own if you think the source is an info hazard) but I know it’s not a realistic expectation. Luckily, egregious plagiarism tells on itself eventually.
I think something else that happens a lot is arrogant people do get inspired. You see something from someone who's small, you have a more established audience or career, you run with it, even convince yourself you're doing them a favor.
Oh, wow. You've just said something I've been thinking through myself this past week... It's a real struggle, in our current society, to accept that none of us are as uniquely creative and original as we want to believe we are ('there is nothing new under the sun' is already a few millenia old). We share too much in common-- cultural history, zeitgeist, the "collective unconscious", not to mention the way we have been deliberately programmed by so many powerful forces, a la Jacques Ellul. I agree with your assessment that the maalvika thing was an "AI laundry cycle"-- which just goes to show that with all of the panic about AI, it's not truly an *existential* threat to people who are making stuff. We can see it, identify it, and so on. It's not independently competing with authentic human originality.
But. It *is* an economic threat, which is something people are not necessarily comfortable discussing. People mad about AI "stealing" creative jobs are mad because they likely imagine that that money would be theirs otherwise. So really, people are concerned about our economic systems, but are framing their objections in romantic terms.
I keep thinking about your fairyland piece, actually. It seems to me that the metaphor has such tremendous explanatory power. Take economically: If we're entering the world of fairyland analogies, we're also entering a premodern economic mind, right? So we are very not incidentally entering a world without enclosure, a world where water and air and *gasp* ideas are not things we "own", but rather are things we interact with, share, and tend to.
Hey, thanks for reading. Completely agree with "retrieving" a premodern mindset. You should check out McLuhan (and his son Eric and grandson Andrew). Something I think about quite often is how most of us won't be able to continue making a living as a content creator. Small businesses or side hustles, yes, but a living, I don't know. I think that's also why theft is so annoying -- this sense of powerlessness, of why you and not me?
I’m old enough to remember plundering as the default mode for online communication (then again the internet was small enough that most people would get the references and it meant speaking to the in-crowd anyway). I refuse to embrace video though. Maybe if I wore a horse mask but not with my own face
Every time I write something like this, I think about your first point -- a lot of people won't do case studies w/ me if I paywall them, for example. They tend to be working from the older model. I think monetization changes things
Note quite. I honestly don't care if someone or even AI "steals" my work, whateva I have pirated a lot of music and books in my day, so I'd have no right to complain if I cared, which I don't. I am so productive that a person would have a full time job stealing my crap, and even they did they'd be two steps behind where I am at currently. It's not the individual pieces of content that's important, it's the creative mind behind the process that is important, and that can't be copied. So what I do is strive for is a unique voice and perspective on things where I am not copying others in my mental process, see the difference?
Proudhon argued that the concept of ownership (possession 😅), particularly of (re)productive resources, is not based on natural right but on historical power dynamics and acts of force.
I liked the Headings.
This is such a necessary reality check for anyone trying to make it as a writer right now. The taxonomy you've laid out is spot-on - I see all of these patterns playing out constantly, especially the tweet-to-think-piece pipeline and the discourse lifecycle you describe.
What strikes me most is how the shift from influence to reach has fundamentally changed what we're optimizing for. The old model where you could have outsized cultural impact with a smaller, engaged readership feels increasingly quaint. Now it's all about timing, audience targeting, and yes - shameless adaptation of what's already working.
Your point about the Gender Wars cycle is brilliant. You can literally watch these conversations repeat every few years with slightly different players, and whoever happens to be positioned right when the cycle comes around again gets credited as a visionary. It's like intellectual crop rotation.
The AI laundering thing is particularly insidious because it gives people plausible deniability. 'Oh, I just happened to have the same thoughts!' Sure, Jan. But honestly, the amount of content we're all expected to churn out makes some version of this almost inevitable. The treadmill is relentless.
I think you're right that adaptation beats bitterness, but damn if it doesn't sting sometimes. The writers who are thriving aren't necessarily the most insightful - they're the ones who best understand the game being played.
Great piece. As a Gen Xer I’ve seen this same dynamic play out at the 100,000 foot level since the late eighties. Similar trends over longer time scales.
80% of the reason I pay for the Bulwark is Jonathan Last, who writes the most uniquely insightful pieces in politics. It’s a rare skill. Maybe it’s because he rarely uses social media?
PS I don’t like the headline style.
Yeah it’s depressing but politicians are becoming more and more like celebrities, with loyal fandoms who will never criticise them or even just expect them to do their jobs and they will defend them with tooth and claw. Wo betide anyone who has the temerity to ask even a slightly awkward question of said celeb-politician.
There’s an old saying - ‘Politics is show-business for ugly people’ & ‘they have a good face for radio’…. but don’t let their superfans hear you say that.
I like how you broke down the categories. And I mostly agree with it. I will say that I work in public policy, so there are a lot of political and cultural issues that people are often writing about at the same time and inevitably someone will write about the same topic you did.
But there are certain creators in my industry who do seem to borrow from others in a fairly egregious manner.
And I think they know exactly what they are doing.
As you said, it is what it is. I don’t know what I can do about it, but I can block those people and avoid them at all costs.
Personally as a reader and not a writer (and therefore uninterested in anyone's audience metrics) I'd like to see a lot more bitterness and yelling at the tides. I feel like people are embarrassed to hate everything now and it's made them lethargic.
Well, with the exception of cases like Maalvika, it's hard. What if you're wrong?
I'm not saying it's the smart way to keep paying rent and get people to like you, just that most internet essayists are so careful and self-conscious I usually find myself wishing they would indulge in the occasional impulsive folly. Not in terms of feuds or stuff like that, necessarily, but just a general indifference to acclimating. Which is why I point out I'm not a writer, this is not an attitude geared towards getting writers money, friends, magazine gigs, satisfaction, or happiness, but to getting them to write more things I actually want to read.
The Maalvika situation reminds me a bit of what happened to James Somerton a while back.
I don’t think we should be super nit picky about people who happen to have the same idea, or somewhere along the line forgot what they read. (It’s a bit unrealistic to require someone to have a perfect log of everything.)
But, I do think it’s wrong when you intentionally try to present someone else’s idea as your own. Part of me wishes the internet had stronger norms around citation (or at least acknowledging the idea is not your own if you think the source is an info hazard) but I know it’s not a realistic expectation. Luckily, egregious plagiarism tells on itself eventually.
I think something else that happens a lot is arrogant people do get inspired. You see something from someone who's small, you have a more established audience or career, you run with it, even convince yourself you're doing them a favor.
Oh, wow. You've just said something I've been thinking through myself this past week... It's a real struggle, in our current society, to accept that none of us are as uniquely creative and original as we want to believe we are ('there is nothing new under the sun' is already a few millenia old). We share too much in common-- cultural history, zeitgeist, the "collective unconscious", not to mention the way we have been deliberately programmed by so many powerful forces, a la Jacques Ellul. I agree with your assessment that the maalvika thing was an "AI laundry cycle"-- which just goes to show that with all of the panic about AI, it's not truly an *existential* threat to people who are making stuff. We can see it, identify it, and so on. It's not independently competing with authentic human originality.
But. It *is* an economic threat, which is something people are not necessarily comfortable discussing. People mad about AI "stealing" creative jobs are mad because they likely imagine that that money would be theirs otherwise. So really, people are concerned about our economic systems, but are framing their objections in romantic terms.
I keep thinking about your fairyland piece, actually. It seems to me that the metaphor has such tremendous explanatory power. Take economically: If we're entering the world of fairyland analogies, we're also entering a premodern economic mind, right? So we are very not incidentally entering a world without enclosure, a world where water and air and *gasp* ideas are not things we "own", but rather are things we interact with, share, and tend to.
Anyway! Thanks for the great essays!
Hey, thanks for reading. Completely agree with "retrieving" a premodern mindset. You should check out McLuhan (and his son Eric and grandson Andrew). Something I think about quite often is how most of us won't be able to continue making a living as a content creator. Small businesses or side hustles, yes, but a living, I don't know. I think that's also why theft is so annoying -- this sense of powerlessness, of why you and not me?
🐬A hit for me. Something about the honesty and true insight moved the dial for me during a time where most things are making me feel like 🙄
Thank you! I only realized hours later how many typos...
I’m old enough to remember plundering as the default mode for online communication (then again the internet was small enough that most people would get the references and it meant speaking to the in-crowd anyway). I refuse to embrace video though. Maybe if I wore a horse mask but not with my own face
Every time I write something like this, I think about your first point -- a lot of people won't do case studies w/ me if I paywall them, for example. They tend to be working from the older model. I think monetization changes things
Information wants to be free but it's gotta be FREE
Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
Yes, but cultural appropriation becomes a thing where people make money on their ideas: https://default.blog/p/35-the-tyranny-of-thinking-out-loud?utm_source=publication-search
Note quite. I honestly don't care if someone or even AI "steals" my work, whateva I have pirated a lot of music and books in my day, so I'd have no right to complain if I cared, which I don't. I am so productive that a person would have a full time job stealing my crap, and even they did they'd be two steps behind where I am at currently. It's not the individual pieces of content that's important, it's the creative mind behind the process that is important, and that can't be copied. So what I do is strive for is a unique voice and perspective on things where I am not copying others in my mental process, see the difference?
Yes! But I think I cover that here.
OK, I skimmed. (sheepish guilty face)
SOML, it's ok
Looking forward to it….
Proudhon argued that the concept of ownership (possession 😅), particularly of (re)productive resources, is not based on natural right but on historical power dynamics and acts of force.
Some things never change. 😏
Hey! We can talk about the plagiarism incident tonight... didn't even make THAT connection! LMAO
See u there. ; )
Love My Peeps!
Ah..! The livestream was 1.30am here in the u.k. ~ i fell a-fucking-sleep. Apologies, i was looking forward to that. : /