Ook ook ook! (monkey sounds)
This week I unsubscribed from Freddie deBoer’s Substack. Not because I was offended by any of his opinions1. It’s just that I can’t keep up with his output of several pieces a week. The post that tipped me over discussed how he’s not a certain Twitter user some people suspect him to be. It’s a short post but I felt obtuse for reading it — why did I have to waste time with it? What did knowing that deBoer doesn’t engage in the age-old art of sock puppetry add to my life? And why did he have to publish it? Now, don’t get me wrong: I don’t hold any bad feelings against Freddie — I understand that in the need to fill the world with content we might end up publishing junk and I do it too. When you are pressed for copy it’s easy to send just about anything out into the void. But why are we pressed for copy? Isn’t the point of Substack that we get to decide what to publish and when?
The infinite monkey theorem came to mind. You know what I mean:
I guess this is what Substack is — but instead of one there’s a million monkeys typing away, hitting keys at random as they react live to current events. And what’s much worse this reaction is filtered through the discourse that exudes from sewage pit that is Twitter. (I’m very guilty of this too.) But can this be avoided? Aren’t we already slaves to the algorithm and its many impersonations? Aren’t we trapped in CONTENT HELL?
I don’t have an answer for these questions. If you do, please write a 3000-word long comment below.
The trap of prolificacy
The infinite monkey theorem is useful in another way: yes, the monkey will eventually end up producing the works of William Shakespeare but 99.99% of the content it’ll write will be absolute gibberish. And this applies not only to simian content but to what we humans produce. The more you write the more likely you are to produce a good text — the price to pay is producing a lot of mediocre ones along the way.
Prolificacy is often seen as a positive attribute but it’s also a trap. Because let’s be fair: can anyone ever be prolific without worsening their “hit-and-miss” ratio? I don’t think anyone can; the question is rather what to do with the junk. As someone who writes compulsively obsessively, one of the hardest battles I have to fight as a writer (not always successfully) is not letting the "compulsion to write" turn into a "compulsion to publish”2. When you are subjected to the times of traditional publishing it’s easier to slow down3; in Substack Hell it’s much harder, because reaching your audience is just a matter of hitting a button4.
There might not be such a thing as “too much writing,” but there is certainly such a thing as “too much publishing.” And it’s not always easy to resist the temptation to release things that are burning in your hands, just because they are burning in your hands. But if you want to be taken for other than a monkey you have to learn.
And when I say “you” I mean “I”.
AI and junk content
“Twitter user Caitlyn Lynch recently noticed that 80 percent of the Amazon eBooks top 100 chart in the Teen & Young Adult Contemporary Romance category were AI-generated. Titles that should have alerted discerning readers included The God Tu Mutters and Ma La Er Snorted Scornfully…” — Private Eye no. 1602, July 2023.
Blah blah blah, Orwell predicted this in 1984, blah blah blah — I’ll spare you the obvious observation, whilst still giving you a red flag: mentioning Georgie O’5. But yes, it’s unavoidable that AI will be used to produce junk content. It’s already successfully used to churn out texts that are only read by SEO engines6. It’s a matter of time until it successfully produces junk literature without readers noticing.
But once more, I’ll ask here the question: is human-made junk necessarily better?
I think of the case of romance novelist Cristiane Serruya, who in early 2019 was accused of plagiarising American author Courtney Milan among others. Serruya’s response is revealing of how some books come to be:
“Responding on her now deleted Twitter account, Serruya initially expressed surprise at the accusations, and then blamed the overlap on a ghostwriter she said she had hired from freelance services marketplace Fiverr.” — Alison Flood, The Guardian, 20 February 2019
There are “authors” out there paying others to ghostwrite their books. This is totally normal… Weird and sad but normal… And some of those who ghostwrite these books may sometimes pull a copy paste trick and their little trick might go unnoticed by the “author” who commissioned their ghostwriting. Which means it could go unnoticed by (most) readers. Beyond the fact that a human being may get paid to ghostwrite these books, would it be different if they were produced by AI? And more importantly: what does it say about our reading culture that these books are popular and that some readers end up buying them, even with their nonsensical titles, simply because someone managed to manipulate an algorithm? For me, it says that literary culture is fucked. It’s been fucked ever since we were convinced that there’s always something inherently noble about books, that all books are worthy of respect7. The only difference right now is that the grift can be streamlined.
As I have said before, if labelling a certain kind of content “junk” paints me as a snob so be it. We have been granted a golden opportunity to draw a very clear red line between what is literature and what is junk. Let’s seize the opportunity.
Otherwise let’s just delegate literary criticism to AI as well. At least this would be a logical step.
This week’s Monday Times Bestsellers
The Wobbly Whiskers and the Blibberblabber Chronicles, Zozzle Quibberflib
The Luminescent Jamboree: Quest for the Ziggledorf, Zorgle Glimmerwump
Whispering Fluffernutters: Tales of the Quibberflop, Quizzle Whiffleblat
The Enigmatic Noodle and the Zoodle-Zoodle Zephyr, Zizzledorf Flügelblitz
The Blibber-Blobs and the Whizbang Whatchamacallit, Zibble Snickerflop
What’s more, I agree with much of his criticism of the strain of identity politics that only has identity to offer.
Osvaldo Lamborghini’s exhortation to “first publish and then write” wasn’t coined for the internet era.
This doesn't mean that 99.99% of what is published isn’t shit. What I mean is that as an author you are subjected to the tempo of traditional publishing — an industry that moves at a snail’s pace and sets limits on your ability to put things out into the world.
Not to mention that you want to keep them paying and you have to give them something, right?
So many red flags: deBoer, Orwell. Where is this going?
To write: a version of Borges’ “Library of Babel” that deals with the millions of bytes produced daily just for SEO eyes…
Trying to save all books from the fire would entail letting every book burn. Fight the book burners, but once the fire is on choose which books to pull from the bonfire.
I am happy to pay for good coffee served well & done right every once in awhile. In the end, most are okay with Starducks which isn’t even coffee. Chai is also not soy chai latte. But no one cares. Except those who do.
People are idiots. Idiots love to absorb shit entertainment. Many writers churn out crap and many readers love it. Same as TV and films.
I noticed on Substack, many writers feel the need to comment on everything. I find with most opinions, politics, etc. I either disagree, or it's so dull and obvious, it goes without saying. I started to ignore most of them. I like yours and Toby's. A couple of others.