In My Flop Era: AI & Creativity

Something has shifted in today's modern digital age.

Certain sentence patterns or phrases (like the one above) set off witch hunts; rhetorical questions raise alarms.

God help you if you dare to use an em dash.

And yet, as keen as it seems so many people are to drag others kicking and screaming into the digital streets with accusations of AI use or AI-created content, the fact remains that said usage shows no signs of slowing down.

A 2025 survey of more than 16,000 creators found that 86% were actively using creative generative AI, and more social platforms are rolling out features that make accessing AI easier than ever.

For influencers, content creators, copywriters, video editors, ANYONE doing anything involving media or creative works of some kind at all, the biggest names in technology are doing everything they can to make sure avoiding AI is next to impossible. Love it or hate it (and those seem to be the only two options), AI is EVERYWHERE.

It's everywhere online, making sure you can't look something up, or open an article or blog without AI helpfully going, “You sure you really want to read this? I can give you the gist!” It's in our phones, telling us the optimal way to pose for photos.

When you do take a photo, the little notification that pops up SAYS something like “touch-up” or “smile enhance” or whatever, but does anyone else feel like what it’s really asking is, “Do you want me to make you less hideous, bud?”

No, actually. That’s my face and I stand by it.

I digress.

Supporters of AI will often talk about the legitimate uses of it, the many ways it can be used as a helpful support tool. That’s true, although in my opinion it’s an entirely separate, unrelated conversation to the “why has AI become such a controversial topic?” conversation, and I don’t think we’re ever going to get anywhere by acting like they’re the same discussion.

So right now, I am focusing on the former.

My stance on generative AI has always been, in my personal opinion, one of realism. No, it isn’t a does-everything-basically-makes-humans-obsolete-miracle-technology. But it also isn’t the software version of the devil itself, set upon earth to bring us into an era of digital hell (except when it calls me ugly; then it can go f**k itself).

Everyone needs to face the facts: some of the things AI can do are useful. The analytical and organizational capabilities can do a lot; they can analyze inputs and integrate into a number of different platforms (the positive upside of the “AI everywhere” issue I mentioned before).

It can provide deeper insights into trends, do research faster than any of us ever could, help us organize ideas and plan what to write or film or create, help us keep track of schedules and set automated reminders and do a million things that you once needed about a million different platforms to do.

Look at what’s already built into the platforms creators use every day:

• Instagram’s Edits assistant can analyze account metrics, comments, Instagram trends and audience interests to explain why content performed the way it did and suggest ideas, hooks, captions, audio and scripts.

• YouTube Studio’s Inspiration tab can help brainstorm video ideas, titles, thumbnails and outlines.

• TikTok Symphony can generate scripts, captions and videos, then translate or dub the result.

• Canva’s Magic Studio can write copy, generate designs, resize them for different channels and create images or videos.

• Premiere Pro can search footage, translate captions and extend clips.

• Buffer combines post planning, scheduling, analytics and AI-generated suggestions about what to post next.

None of this should ever be used to replace the actual creative part of the work, but it can save creators from spending hours jumping between programs, searching through footage or manually reformatting the same idea for six different platforms.

However, there’s a downside to all that as well.

For a while now we’ve been experiencing a certain “same-ification” across the internet. TikTok rises up as Vine’s replacement as the go-to short-form video app, and suddenly Instagram has Reels and YouTube has Shorts.

Interfaces are becoming less and less distinguished from one another, and the idea of having a unique feature is considered more of a risk than a benefit.

Overreliance on AI tools risks creating the same issue for content creators. Everyone using the same tools, taking the same generated suggestions runs the risks of having their own unique voice and perspective flattened until it's indistinguishable from everyone else.

I’m not the first person to say this and I won’t be the last, but it’s true, so it bears repeating: AI is a tool; it’s not a replacement for actual creativity. It can help you research, analyze, plan, focus and refine your work even, but it cannot do the actual work for you.

And even then, and at each stage, it’s important to be cautious. The temptation to use AI to help with the boring parts of work is very real, and like I said, it can be an extremely useful tool.

But there’s also something to be said for doing that boring process work yourself.

Yes, AI can analyze your past content and how it performed and use that to make data-backed recommendations for what your next three articles or videos or posts should be about, with focused insight about why these recommended topics are sure to resonate with your target audience.

I’m not saying don’t use that feature.

What I am saying is to review those recommendations carefully and make sure that when you take them, you’re doing it because the idea is sound, not simply because the AI said it was so.

And sometimes, I think it’s also just as important to say f**k it and do what you want.

Forget what the AI said was statistically most likely to perform; forget the analysis and the numbers.

Don’t use AI to streamline jackshit; don’t make a polished or refined anything at all. Just make something because you thought it would be awesome or you had something you wanted to say and figured maybe at least one person would want to hear it.

Maybe someone does.

Maybe no one does and it’ll flop hard.

So what?

You learn so much more every time you try and fail on your own than anytime you succeed with the help of an algorithm anyhow. And you learn even more when you work through each stage of the creation process. Even the boring, tedious parts.

Spending all that time doing the research, brainstorming ideas, giving up, coming up with new ideas, slamming your head against a wall because you’re an idiot who’s never had a single original thought in your entire life, leaving it for another day, suddenly working out what the problem was and making it work because you’re a friggin’ genius and everyone else can suck it—AI might take away all that struggle, but it also takes away all that learning and growth, too.

Sometimes it’s best to go back to basics.

The struggle sucks, but it’s the suck that makes it good.

Besides, in an era of same-ified AI slop, I think we should all feel pretty proud every time we make our own completely unique flops.

Also, I used an em dash. Come at me, bro.