Quality

A bunch of seagulls fighting over the leftover scraps

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I just read a Reddit post of a freelance artist complaining about the current state of the market, what she has to do to make a living, and how it there’s no solution in sight.

Especially since competition is at an all-time high thanks to services like Fiverr and Upwork.

The artist even called it “an never ending race of artists acting like sea gulls for crumbs for a 5$ job (or 5 bucks an hour)”. Just imagine that. Having to struggle and actively fight (figuratively at least) with other people just so you can be the one to get the project that pays you $5 for an art piece—some of which can easily take 10–20 hours to complete on occasion.

I’m amazed how these artists are even making a profit on these projects. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t. Artists working with actual paint and canvases can’t even buy their paint with that kind of money. I’m quite sure a digital artist wastes most of their hard-earned money on electricity to create their art.

Such a tragic sight to behold.

No wonder these kinds of people can’t shut up about AI and how they’ll need to use it to speed up their workflow or it’s going to steal their jobs. It’s only logical. They haven’t even figured out how to make their creations worth a damn.

Sure AI art is crap, but that doesn’t matter for people who can’t recognize the good from the bad and commission $5 art pieces.

The worst part?

All of this can be avoided if these types of artists, and any other type of creatives, simply knew how to create good products, ones that are actually worth something, while also knowing how to make the customer understand the worth of what they’re offering. Then all they needed to do is launch and talk about the damn thing and their $5-an-hour days would be long gone, a distant memory of times forgotten.

Anyway.

If you’d like to learn how to ideate, create, and launch a new (digital) product in 21 days or less (whether it’s art, entertainment, or information), then check out Product Creation Made Easy here: https://alexvandromme.com/product


The case against AI

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Today I received a sponsor request from some newsletter (which I won’t name for obvious reasons) about using AI to grow your LinkedIn account.

I immediately declined it—no hesitation whatsoever.

But it did get me thinking.

What’s the deal with the latest obsession about everything AI? Why does everything you do, including everything you create, everything that’s personal, has meaning, stands for something, everything that’s priceless in a way, has to be replaced (or at least, people try to replace it) with AI?

It’ll only end up being a cheap knock-off, without any intrinsic meaning, without any deeper intention behind it, without any soul.

Sure use AI were it makes sense.

In fact, we’ve already been using AI for decades in many use cases across countless of domains. Only then people still knew what AI actually meant and nobody was fanboying about it as if it’s the second coming of Christ.

But that aside, why on Earth, would you want to use AI to replace the creative things people do?

And even then, if you’re trying to use AI to grow your LinkedIn brand or whatever, then you clearly haven’t thought about what it means to “build a brand” or what the purpose of trying to grow (anything) on LinkedIn even is.

Spoiler: it’s not to fill a spreadsheet.

Not to mention what’ll become of your reputation if you use AI to do all of your ‘dirty work’ (yes it’s that obvious, and that soulless).

And last but not least.

If you honestly think of growing your brand (or anything else for that matter) as ‘dirty work’ you’d rather outsource to AI (or someone else), then, sorry not sorry, you might be in the wrong business and there’s nothing here for you in the first place.

In case this triggers you. Good.

It’s meant to do so.

I’d much rather you get triggered now, feel hurt, attacked, and shamed by what you’re doing (or what you were planning on doing) while risking you hating me and leaving my list for good (always free to do so), than playing nice, not daring to bring this up, making sure you feel cosy and comfortable, never understanding that ChatGPTing your way to building a brand, creating content, selling products, never to have any success whatsoever, not realizing you were doomed to fail from the very start.

That said, I’m not 100% shitting on AI.

As I said, it does have its use cases.

Mainly internal things you’ve got going on. Use it to transcribe audio recordings you made while on a walk or on a meeting. Use it to summarize those same records or other reports you (or other people) made. Maybe even use it to automate the tracking and reporting of your finances or how you’re spending your time.

But for the love of everything that’s holy.

Don’t use it for anything creative (it’ll single-handedly ruin your ability to be creative in the ways that matter) and god forbid you use it to create any form of final product your customers, readers, listeners, fans, or whoever will ever see.

In short, if it sees daylight (either in the form of an end result or a skill you’re practicing), don’t use AI.

I’ll leave it at that for now.

Anyway.

If you’d like to learn how to create content, build a brand, and write emails that have soul and meaning in them, then you might want to check out Email Valhalla.

You can do so here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla