My Hopes for the creative world in 2025
Staying positive-ish
This post was a battle with myself - a real fight to come up with things to be excited about in 2025 because 2024 was what it was, and the news is what it is, and EVERYTHING AI ALL THE TIME has been relentless. So, you may have guessed - I’ve been in a mood. I know, I know, I get in moods frequently - I didn’t used to! But its just so hard not to get in them with all the THINGS happening. So, whatever, this is sometimes a moody newsletter. I’ve accepted this. But don’t worry, I promise to always give you fair warning when things are getting moody. And while this list IS a bit moody, its also positive (I swear).
Here it is - my nerdy predictions for the future of art in books and movies, and stuff that i think would be fun and cool as artists of all kinds get extra creative to rise above the slop and algorithms.
The slop drop - I am fairly confident the torrent of AI slop that will spew out of every space and orifice on the internet will become too maddening, rendering everything impossible to use, to navigate and the risk of random traumatizing encounters with nightmare bot content unavoidable. I think this will make trust in big platforms and companies erode across the boards, no one sure what's real, what's lies, what's authentic and what's a scam. (This is a positive post, I promise! Just stay with me on this).
And so, I think, word of mouth will become the ultimate channel for discovery. We all already ask "so, you watching anything good?" when we gather with family and friends because we're all stranded in our little content islands, unsure what's out there on streaming seas yet to be explored. We rely on friends and writers we follow, influencers we trust, to help us find entertainment. And that will be increasingly important, for everything - shows, movies, books, music. As we retreat from the rising onslaught of slop, isolating in our safe online bunkers of people and creators we know to be real with taste we enjoy, we will follow them down rabbit holes to their online trusted spaces and discover music and art by the creatives that they follow/enjoy. And in that we will find things that are fresh and surprising and inspiring and weird and different. And we will recommend in turn. And from that, I think is how we witness a turn in the zeitgeist, a shift in culture. All thanks to AI! Sort of like how the dolphins returned to Venice after we all went indoors because of Covid. It'll be like that. But for art.