Helen Speaks

There’s a scene in so many movies, often Christmas themed, where some well-off but emotionally starved child longs for their parent – probably the dad, because Stereotypes – to finally come through with some gift, gesture or word that finally proves that they care. And the parent seems to be finally about to do it this time. They will definitely leave that meeting to see their kid win the big last game of the baseball season. They will definitely buy that much-desired hard-to-find gift that their child longs for. They will finally express how much they love their offspring and how proud they are. This is it! This is the one! That kid is frankly sick with the excitement and anticipation! And then…
They get too chummy with their work pals. They forget all about the gift when they go drinking. They present the child with a beautiful birthday card in their secretary’s handwriting that mistakenly says they are 2 rather than 12.
Have you ever aspired to be this absolute pillar of parenthood, not just to your own mini-humans, but to the world at large? To lead people on into thinking you’re about to express something original, personal, genuine, but instead give them something generic that had no original thought behind it or care put into it?
Then I’d suggest not ever picking up a pen or spending time thinking about your blogposts, but simply writing the words “Write me a blogpost about fighting depression/ mining crypto/growing carnivorous plants/ the cultural relevance of ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes’ and how it links to late stage Capitalism” into the glorified chatbot of your choice, and revel as you contribute to the internet slowly disintegrating into a bunch of content that repeats generic advice, is uncontroversial to the point of blandness, and leaves people with the sour taste of having had their time utterly wasted.

PLEASE DON’T USE GENERATIVE AI TO WRITE YOUR POSTS. We’ve all got access to them. We don’t need you to ChatGPT it for us.