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Hello Dr Tingle! I wanted to ask you about that re: your post about how all your books are serious literature (hell yeah Love is real). How do you personally deal with the whole traditional publishing institution? It attracts a whole different level of coverage and it seems that they're very quick to try and box you and like turn you into a brand. Is it stiffling? Is it freeing? Does the attention help more people understand your trot? I don't know I've never been published but since you have experience in both traditional and self publishing I'm interested in knowing how that's feeling for you
well this is a pretty complex question with lots of different trots but i will try my best to answer. lets start with WHO I AM as buckaroo name of chuck
what i create has a very strong voice and my way is pretty recognizable. while buckaroos do not know what most authors look like, i REALLY stand out in a dang crowd with a big pink bag on my head. if you see 50 random author photos and mine is mixed in and then you ask 'which photo do you remember the most?' it is probably gonna be chuck. i also have a VERY UNIQUE STORY with what i create and my artistic sensibilities, not a lot of buds are out there making trans mothman erotica along with their big five traditional publishing bestsellers (SIDENOTE preorder BURY YOUR GAYS)
now if you were going to take 'CHUCK TINGLE' to a marketing department they would FALL OVER BACKWARDS IN THEIR DANG CHAIR with excitement. it is hard to think of an author with a stronger BRAND than i already have in the sense of 'instantly recognizable trot and specific unique style'. even in answering this you can tell that i dont even TALK like other dang authors.
what i am getting at is this: i am VERY VERY LUCKY because my existence just so happens to equate to what a company would see as GOOD BRANDING. it is not intentional on my part, it is just the hand of fate i guess. im out here expressing myself in a FULL ON WAY that is PRETTY DANG STRANGE TO SOME and it just so happens to work as mainstream branding too
on paper you might think 'what the heck no way chuck tingle will fly as a mainstream trot' but honestly the main thread of this timeline can be surprising sometimes. ive been saying the key ingredient for years and i will say it again: LOVE AND SINCERITY RESONATE. when you make art with this fuel, the timeline will feel it. when you stand up tall and shout with your whole chest THIS IS MY WAY AND I LOVE MYSELF. I AM THE WORLDS GREATEST AUTHOR TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT, the timeline will listen
so all that said, i do not mind the idea of myself as 'brand' because i am not CHANGING myself to create this effect. what some might see as 'brand' i just see as another part of my art. i have always believed that art is THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE not just the painting but what is outside of the frame. WHO I AM is just as important as the books i write, and interacting with my way is a whole MULTIMEDIA experience that INCLUDES YOU TOO. it is the feeling when your friend shows you your first tingler cover, or the feeling when you realize that i am not playing a character. this is ALL a part of the tingleverse and it is all a part of my honest raw expression as a queer and neurodivergent buckaroo.
YOU ARE PART OF THIS ART TOO
it is my nature of have a PUNK ROCK trot. always has been. but to me that does not mean just angrily going against everything for the sake of going against everything. for me, this punk rock trot means fighting to EXPRESS MYSELF IN THE MOST HONEST AND PURE FORM POSSIBLE and to create the art that i want to make without any boundaries
somehow i have threaded the needle in this really interesting once-in-a-dang-lifetime kind of way. my pure punk rock self as an OUTERSIDER ARTIST just so happens to resonate with this larger system of brand and traditional publishing and popular culture. i COULD reject this, but rejecting it would be LESS HONEST.
this is just who i am. i LIKE pop culture. i LIKE joy. i LIKE dressing in all pink and wearing my custom suits. I LIKE PROVING LOVE IS REAL WHAT THE HECK ELSE EVEN IS THERE? i love being a queer outsider artist and using my small voice to shout at the big bad devils and i like that every time i shout a few more of you buckaroos join the chorus and together we are just getting louder and louder and louder and WHO KNOWS what comes next for us all trotting together.
when i post something like 'WHAT A GREAT DAY TO PROVE LOVE' it is not me sitting here in a bad mood thinkin 'well i gotta make todays post to keep up with my brand'. i am ACTUALLY FEELING THAT FEELING and i actually believe it with every fiber of my being. honestly, half the time i post about the beauty of this timeline i am probably over here literally crying tears of joy (chuck is an emotional bud i get riled over the joy of existence A LOT)
and heres the best part of this trot: because i really have this punk rock way it makes me very powerful. others can pretend not to care about success and brand and all that but I REALLY DO NO CARE. i would write tinglers whether buds were reading them or not, this is just my natural state, and that makes me incredibly strong. if some big corporation says 'YOU MUST DO THIS' and i dont want to do it i just say 'no thanks'. it is not some big debate about my career or anything like that because I REALLY DO NOT CARE IN THE SLIGHTEST. i care about the art
because of this, my relationship with my GIANT TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING MACHINE is great. we trot like equals and we get along really well. i tell them exactly what i want to do and they let me do it. i really do not have to answer to anyone and they deserve a huge amount of credit for respecting me in this way.
and heres the thing, THEY ALSO HAVE SOME GREAT IDEAS
SPECIFICALLY my imprint of NIGHTFIRE is very dang cool. yes, they are the head of a giant hydra of a BIG FIVE PUBLISHER, but nightfire is SO DANG ART-FOCUSED
there is no right or wrong way to be an artist, and my path is not the only one, but i can tell you what WORKS FOR ME. this is the advice i would give myself, and buckaroos can take it or leave it
here it is: never beg the big book publisher, or record label, or movie studio to pay attention to you
do not let it become a lotto ticket in your brain. do not think that you are some weak little creature and maybe if you trot just right they will scoop you up and take care of you. do not go to their door begging to be let in
LET THEM COME TO YOUR DOOR
create something so incredible and beautiful and honest and powerful and unique and important that they would be foolish to miss out. create a community or a system or a timeline or a world of imagination that thrives on its own and THEY SHOULD BE SO LUCKY TO BE A PART OF IT
then when you sit down at that board meeting it is not 'please brand me, ill do whatever you want'. instead, it is 'lets make a deal and see how much love we can prove together.'
Sketches for the first two "Morbius Doctors": the Christopher Barry Doctor and the Robert Banks Stewart Doctor. (With inspiration from Paul Hanley's character designs and the Forgotten Lives books.)
Patreon post about these:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/sketchbook-first-97306596?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
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As a follow-up to yesterday's submission, I went looking into the comic out of curiosity and why does every single woman in this comic look like she's finally letting out a fart she's been holding in all day.
I thought the lovely lady in the green and gold would be an easy fix, so I opened my screenshot of her and flipped over to the marker in the editor but I was Not Prepared for just how much her posture was inspired by cooked pasta.
Her spine was folded in half and her helium boobs were escaping confinement, so I straightened that out, then gave her a better illusion of having a butt and a chin. I thought about tackling the tumor on her shoulder, but five minutes of edits only gets you so far.
I love a good asymmetrical costume so hopefully this lady gets a good artist at some point!
This is a pretty good fix given how weird the pose is even without the cooked pasta body warping.Ā It looks less like she's letting out a fart she's been holding in now at least.
I really like how you're trying to take on some of these poses!
How plausible sentence generators are changing the bullshit wars
This Friday (September 8) at 10hPT/17hUK, I'm livestreaming "How To Dismantle the Internet" with Intelligence Squared.
On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.
In my latest Locus Magazine column, "Plausible Sentence Generators," I describe how I unwittingly came to use ā and even be impressed by ā an AI chatbot ā and what this means for a specialized, highly salient form of writing, namely, "bullshit":
Here's what happened: I got stranded at JFK due to heavy weather and an air-traffic control tower fire that locked down every westbound flight on the east coast. The American Airlines agent told me to try going standby the next morning, and advised that if I booked a hotel and saved my taxi receipts, I would get reimbursed when I got home to LA.
But when I got home, the airline's reps told me they would absolutely not reimburse me, that this was their policy, and they didn't care that their representative had promised they'd make me whole. This was so frustrating that I decided to take the airline to small claims court: I'm no lawyer, but I know that a contract takes place when an offer is made and accepted, and so I had a contract, and AA was violating it, and stiffing me for over $400.
The problem was that I didn't know anything about filing a small claim. I've been ripped off by lots of large American businesses, but none had pissed me off enough to sue ā until American broke its contract with me.
So I googled it. I found a website that gave step-by-step instructions, starting with sending a "final demand" letter to the airline's business office. They offered to help me write the letter, and so I clicked and I typed and I wrote a pretty stern legal letter.
Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I have worked for a campaigning law-firm for over 20 years, and I've spent the same amount of time writing about the sins of the rich and powerful. I've seen a lot of threats, both those received by our clients and sent to me.
I've been threatened by everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Ralph Lauren to the Sacklers. I've been threatened by lawyers representing the billionaire who owned NSOG roup, the notoroious cyber arms-dealer. I even got a series of vicious, baseless threats from lawyers representing LAX's private terminal.
So I know a thing or two about writing a legal threat! I gave it a good effort and then submitted the form, and got a message asking me to wait for a minute or two. A couple minutes later, the form returned a new version of my letter, expanded and augmented. Now, my letter was a little scary ā but this version was bowel-looseningly terrifying.
I had unwittingly used a chatbot. The website had fed my letter to a Large Language Model, likely ChatGPT, with a prompt like, "Make this into an aggressive, bullying legal threat." The chatbot obliged.
I don't think much of LLMs. After you get past the initial party trick of getting something like, "instructions for removing a grilled-cheese sandwich from a VCR in the style of the King James Bible," the novelty wears thin:
Yes, science fiction magazines are inundated with LLM-written short stories, but the problem there isn't merely the overwhelming quantity of machine-generated stories ā it's also that they suck. They're bad stories:
LLMs generate naturalistic prose. This is an impressive technical feat, and the details are genuinely fascinating. This series by Ben Levinstein is a must-read peek under the hood:
But "naturalistic prose" isn't necessarily good prose. A lot of naturalistic language is awful. In particular, legal documents are fucking terrible. Lawyers affect a stilted, stylized language that is both officious and obfuscated.
The LLM I accidentally used to rewrite my legal threat transmuted my own prose into something that reads like it was written by a $600/hour paralegal working for a $1500/hour partner at a white-show law-firm. As such, it sends a signal: "The person who commissioned this letter is so angry at you that they are willing to spend $600 to get you to cough up the $400 you owe them. Moreover, they are so well-resourced that they can afford to pursue this claim beyond any rational economic basis."
Let's be clear here: these kinds of lawyer letters aren't good writing; they're a highly specific form of bad writing. The point of this letter isn't to parse the text, it's to send a signal. If the letter was well-written, it wouldn't send the right signal. For the letter to work, it has to read like it was written by someone whose prose-sense was irreparably damaged by a legal education.
Here's the thing: the fact that an LLM can manufacture this once-expensive signal for free means that the signal's meaning will shortly change, forever. Once companies realize that this kind of letter can be generated on demand, it will cease to mean, "You are dealing with a furious, vindictive rich person." It will come to mean, "You are dealing with someone who knows how to type 'generate legal threat' into a search box."
Legal threat letters are in a class of language formally called "bullshit":
LLMs may not be good at generating science fiction short stories, but they're excellent at generating bullshit. For example, a university prof friend of mine admits that they and all their colleagues are now writing grad student recommendation letters by feeding a few bullet points to an LLM, which inflates them with bullshit, adding puffery to swell those bullet points into lengthy paragraphs.
Naturally, the next stage is that profs on the receiving end of these recommendation letters will ask another LLM to summarize them by reducing them to a few bullet points. This is next-level bullshit: a few easily-grasped points are turned into a florid sheet of nonsense, which is then reconverted into a few bullet-points again, though these may only be tangentially related to the original.
What comes next? The reference letter becomes a useless signal. It goes from being a thing that a prof has to really believe in you to produce, whose mere existence is thus significant, to a thing that can be produced with the click of a button, and then it signifies nothing.
We've been through this before. It used to be that sending a letter to your legislative representative meant a lot. Then, automated internet forms produced by activists like me made it far easier to send those letters and lawmakers stopped taking them so seriously. So we created automatic dialers to let you phone your lawmakers, this being another once-powerful signal. Lowering the cost of making the phone call inevitably made the phone call mean less.
Today, we are in a war over signals. The actors and writers who've trudged through the heat-dome up and down the sidewalks in front of the studios in my neighborhood are sending a very powerful signal. The fact that they're fighting to prevent their industry from being enshittified by plausible sentence generators that can produce bullshit on demand makes their fight especially important.
Chatbots are the nuclear weapons of the bullshit wars. Want to generate 2,000 words of nonsense about "the first time I ate an egg," to run overtop of an omelet recipe you're hoping to make the number one Google result? ChatGPT has you covered. Want to generate fake complaints or fake positive reviews? The Stochastic Parrot will produce 'em all day long.
As I wrote for Locus: "None of this prose is good, none of it is really socially useful, but thereās demand for it. Ironically, the more bullshit there is, the more bullshit filters there are, and this requires still more bullshit to overcome it."
Meanwhile, AA still hasn't answered my letter, and to be honest, I'm so sick of bullshit I can't be bothered to sue them anymore. I suppose that's what they were counting on.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
As someone who has been attempting to use LLMs and Transformer based AI models to make public domain sci-fi works based on early 20th century Sci-Fi - this all checks out depressingly.
For context - In order to potentially get this to work anywhere near well I'm effectively only using the base architecture of LLMs to learn the meta-narrative of stories (broken down into graph form (YAY GRAPHS)) which can then make facsimiles of stories that have come before.
Most LLMs don't do this.
Most LLMs aren't trained to consider the structure of long-form literature or stories.
An alarming number of LLM creators don't check their training data thoroughly.
They just bung masses of data into the machine with no regard to the structure, and meaning, and storytelling (or copyright...) of the text itself. It's effectively a case of "chuck all of humanity's literature into the blender and it'll mostly be fine".
You'll be at the dining table with this eldritch abomination of a foodstuff you ordered, take a bite, and it'll be a combination of Austen, Shelley and Hunter S Thompson in weird amounts with an aftertaste that just makes little culinary sense as the meal goes on.
You can fine-tune them, but it's only so effective given the underlying architecture.
LLM's are effectively giant pattern identifying machines - for that they're very useful. They're good for creating chatbots that can output info on very unambiguous fields where knowledge stays similar for an age. Otherwise be very, VERY careful using them.
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Glorious new print from Colleen Doran, the winter wonderland cover of Snow Glass Apples!
Printed on gorgeous pearlescent stock, 11" x 17" dimensions.
Get in on our Labor Day pre-sale plus a $5 off code,
please enter at checkout:
SGA5
more info here: NEVERWEAR
With your help, on our last print, we gave a hefty donation to Maui Humane Society, this round we will be donating to kitten/animal rescues and a Haitian displaced children project.
Super grateful to you all!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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