I post on Reddit. Someone says itβs AI. I tell them it is not. They say, βsure, buddyβ.
I post on Reddit. βAI slop,β they comment. βand if it isnβt, itβs bad, mediocre writing.β
βNo, I am not a bad writer.β I have the audacity to say. βWriting is part of what I do professionally. I get paid to do this.β
Someone else posts on Reddit. A chat from Bumble, where a man has the gall to use the unnatural em-dash. βNo one uses the em-dash,β they say. Itβs a trope at this point, I know. βThe hypen is much more common. I donβt know where to even find the em-dash. Plus, he said you were βeliteβ. No one would say that.β
βThe hypen isnβt grammatically correct.β I tell them, looking over the chat log. Itβs a real person on the other side, their personality obfuscated by the nerves that come with reaching out on a dating app. Thereβs subtle humor, missing punctuation. Still, 100 people condemn it as AI. Itβs more feasible to them that someone would edit those human elements back in manually than type it themselves.
I post on Reddit. I tell them my writing keeps being called AI slop. They say it is, it is. Use fewer periods. Capitalize less. Ignore the rules. A real person wouldnβt write like that. A real person wouldnβt use those words, or say it like that. Iβm a real person. I canβt prove it to them.
Someone, finally, says that the tone of my post matches how some books are written. That maybe it would be good for those who doubt that the writing is man-made to read more man-made books.
βYou think we donβt read?β They ask. Then something more incendiary: βYou think youβre better than us?β
And, hey? Bad news, babes. This isnβt hyperbole. This is all real shit that has happened in the last week.
What the fuck is going on???
