It’s the Age of Slop. Social networks have become attention media economies, and the best way to game them is to produce the same mass produced garbage that appeals to the broadest of possible audiences while competing with the other mass produced garbage that appeals to the broadest of possible audiences only by going yet broader.
We will not play this game.
Contra homeopathy, diluting something does not make it stronger. It’s harmless and ineffective. In other words, slop. Removing emojis, semicolons, and em-dashes isn’t going to cut it anymore. Every piece of your writing should have the potential to kill at least one Victorian-era child.
But I also don’t think you need to be Dostovesky, or spend even more time reading or writing, to do something better than a large language model. I mean, it would be great if you did, but I am not elitist enough to gatekeep writing of all things to only smart people. And I don’t want being dumb to be a good excuse to speaking like a LinkedIn influencer.
So. A low effort, Quick-n’-Dirty guide to not sound like a clanker, in April, 2026.
- Don’t use correct English. It’s a social construct. Use “passer-by’s” instead of “passers-by”. Use “talismen” instead of “talismans” because that just sounds weird.
- Use images. Empty your meme folder. Embed Youtube videos. Use quotes from your favourite music. Cite blogs, articles, papers, no one has read or will read, except you.
- Headings don’t have to be topic organisers, they can be statements.
- Use obscure references no one asked for. I mean, explain them, of course, but don’t worry about coming off pretentious.
- Say shit. Say fuck. Make it clear that this is not an advertiser friendly space.
- Be dense. Non-tautological. Unless you have a clever turn of phrase you wish to use, in which case there is no copywriting saving you.
- Tricolons. Humans do this sometimes; LLMs do it compulsively. It’s the written equivalent of a laugh track—structurally correct, rhythmically satisfying, and immediately suspicious.[1] Don’t use it.
- Have an intent beyond distribution.
- There’s a reason long AI use gives people psychosis; all responses are structured towards convincingness. They try to override an assumed prior without knowing your assumed priors: “it’s X, not Y”.
You can probably notice this pattern: these are very high risk writing practices. It’s not something you can do in your board examinations. But the same inoffensive cookie-cutter writing practices is exactly what artificial intelligence is trained on, exactly what millions of LinkedIn profiles salivate on hearing, and exactly what AI companies want it to generate.
Maybe an year ago[2] I would be ambivalent on these practices, but as I said, this is the Age of Slop. If I wanted Slop I would go to the freaking Slop Factory; what do I need you for? Not everyone likes almonds in their cookies but the pure-dough biscuits we are fed by AI generated voiceovers on AI generated scripts cannot possibly be healthy for you. Writing is a far more flexible technology than academia wants you to realise.[3]