Iāve been thinking a lot recently about writing, and writing fanfic specifically, in the year of our (AI over)lord 2026.
My friend and I got to talking recently about the influx of āwriters who donāt readā opinions on the internet, which also got us to talking about AI-assisted or AI-generated writing. I honestly donāt understand how someone who is not desperately, voraciously, frothing-at-the-mouth into reading would decide that writing is the best medium for the creativity and stories they have spilling out of their heads, but, hey, we all contain multitudes.
Rather than The Cultural Paucity Of Younger Generations (and other generation-war narratives that only serve to divide the non-elitist classes), this feels to me like a natural consequence of the mainstay of our greyscaled world: productivity. Who has time to read? Whereās the productivity gain in reading fiction?
If youāre old enough to remember the pre-GFC years, before āhustleā became a form of employment, then maybe you can validate my impression that artistic pursuit was considered a lowly-paid, highly-competitive career, but still a career that it was possible to pursue. I canāt think of anyone in my high school graduating class of 2008 who had plans to become the next Georgia OāKeeffe or Margaret Atwood (at least, not that they said out loud), but there were people who planned to save up their money and spend a year putting all their effort and love and sweat and tears into their band or photography, and maybe something would happen for them, or maybe it wouldnāt. But it was worth trying.
What a waste of productivity, right?
Instead they could have hustled, fit in piece of shit ad-hoc jobs around the edges of creative pursuits, until the ad-hoc jobs became even more ad-hoc, and they had to hustle harder and harder until there was no time left at all for painting, not if they wanted to buy groceries that month.
But! Now you can hustle AND be creative AND stay productive! All you need to do is let AI do the grunt work! Just seed your ideas and tweak the responses and you, too, can have a low-effort roll of the dice at becoming the next George R. R. Martin, one whoās guaranteed to write to the ending because the computer canāt say no.
Like, I hate it, but I do get it.
I should probably say at this point that I have very few ties to professional artistic communities, dedicated creative writers, academic cultural analysis, and no background in economic or political science. My skill set is hard science (obligatory Scully video, as is legally required), and Iāve returned to writing after a gap of about twenty-two years with no training or guidance. Iām just here, on the fringes of these communities, with a love of the game, so this has probably all been said before.
The pursuit of creativity in a capitalist structure is, pretty much by definition, a battle of compromise. Of palatability and speed and access and marketability and the fragile tastes of the majorities.
The barter economy, while charming and inducing lovely visions of communities taking care of each other, has been so thoroughly hollowed out by the last decade of betrayals of āexposureā, the unbalanced scales of heart and soul and brilliance and effort on one side, and the impact of a fine-print acknowledgement lost to an audience doomscrolling while simultaneously watching TV.
Which leaves us, delightfully, with the gift economy.
Of course, people still hustle here for kudos and views and internet points that donāt matter, and of course AI has spread like a weed wherever it can.
But, in my mind, this is still where the purest authenticity in modern creativity is still able to thrive. People write things because they canāt not write them. Because it consumes them until itās on the page. And itās left on the internet as an offering, an open door: maybe this will please you too? Maybe something I do, for the pure unremunerated benefit of working hard and having something at the end, something that is mine, little pieces of my life and soul twisted into the vocabulary and shape and form, inextricable from the seed of an idea in a way that AI is unable to mimic on your behalf ā maybe it will reach into someoneās heart and make them realise that someone theyāve never met on the other side of the world has written something that will forever alter the lens through which they view their life. And the author just left it there, waiting for them, without asking for anything in return.
What a gift we can give to each other. To remind each other than the very essence of you, all the words you always misspell (looking at you, ādevastatingā), all the books youāve read (or not), all family dynamics you survived, all the weirdos in your uni tutorials who will one day make excellent background characters: this is cherished. This makes a stranger feel seen. This rings true. This delights people.
All this to say: be weird, I beg you. Be nerdy, I beg you. Be off the wall and silly and utterly obsessed. Love your fellow humans, and all the joy they leave on your doorstep. And try, just try.