I can spot robot writing from a mile away
Reading ChatGPT content = eating dry chicken
I originally asked ChatGPT to write this post, and here’s the intro it generated for me:
“We hope this newsletter finds you in good spirits and overflowing with inspiration! At Lemay Story Studio, we believe in the extraordinary power of creativity to transform the written word into something truly magical. Today, we want to explore the profound importance of creativity in writing and how it can unlock endless possibilities for your copywriting endeavors.”
I can spot ChatGPT writing from a mile away. It comes across like a high school essayist pining for a scholarship, desperate not to mess up, eager to use the smartest words and careful not to offend anyone with informalities.
In other words: Reading something that was written by ChatGPT feels like eating really dry chicken.
I’m seeing this type of content everywhere now. In my DMs on LinkedIn. On websites. I recently read a book about utilizing ChatGPT for email marketing, and I’m convinced the book itself was written by a bot.
Here’s the thing: this is just the beginning. Everyone is looking to cut corners. Everyone wants to save time and money. And that means we’re about to encounter a world in which there’s a lot more content with a lot less meaning.
But that’s good for people like you and me, who understand the power of good writing.
Because in a world where writing is becoming cheaper; drier; blander… ours will stand out like a lighthouse. The humanity of a one-word sentence; the realness of a typo; the beauty of a well-told story will feel, to your readers, like a glass of sweet tea after eating bone-dry chicken.
I’ll be at the Taylor Swift concert tonight (eek!) and I’m struck by what she said about her songwriting a few years back:
“Everybody in music has their own niche that sets them apart from everybody else, and storytelling is what that is for me.”
If storytelling is Taylor Swift’s niche, she chose the right one. She’s living proof that people (millions of them) around the world deeply care about well-told stories.
So keep writing the hard way (or hire someone who can). Keep rediscovering your voice, and don’t let formalities or grammar or AI bots tell you how to use it. Trust the fact that good content always rises to the top, just like one gooey, homemade cookie will always taste better than a dozen from the grocery store.
