Letters by Burk #138: Be Real, People

Also, Substack fame, AI content, US states, and more

Burk

Aug 15, 2024

Hi friends,

the internet is a great place. Full of knowledge, help, entertainment, and fun.

It’s also a hellhole. You can’t trust anyone, people are trying to spam, take advantage of you, or mislead you.

If you’ve spent time on social media, you know what I mean. I’ve gotten so much inspiration from amazing creators and influencers. But I also can’t count the number of times, shady people tried some shady stuff.

That’s the (digital) world we live in.

Even “seemingly “trustworthy” people can be fake.

You see my numbers in the screenshot above. Over 60K subscribers and more than 600 paid ones.

Great stuff, right?!

But those numbers are fake. It’s unbelievably easy to fake numbers like these in screenshots and even screen recordings.

Anyone can do it.

And I assure you, many do. You’ve probably come across some who did. And you didn’t realize it. They seemed like genuine creators with a large following.

It’s sad. But that’s the world we live in.

Great quote to sum it up:

“Fake people have an image to maintain. Real people just don’t care.” ― Hachiman Hikigaya

Be real, people! It’s the thing we love.

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#1 Main Story:

Why You Need a Platform-Independent Audience in 2024

Imagine this scenario:

You've built a massive following, raking in thousands of views and a nice income month after month.

Then, without warning, you get banned from the platform. Just like that, your audience and revenue stream disappears.

This is exactly what happened to me a couple of years ago. It was a wake-up call that made three things crystal clear to me:

Have multiple income streams to stay safe
Utilize multiple platforms to diversify your presence
Most crucially, grow an audience independent of any single platform

Let me share the full backstory and why building a platform-independent audience is an absolute must in 2024.

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#2 Essay:

Fresh, Soulless Content Now Generated For You 24/7

It’s happened.

The day we writers and bloggers have long feared has arrived.

Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT have advanced to the point where they can generate articles, essays, blog posts, and even longform content, with the click of a button.

Slow clap for technology.

I mean, who needs human creativity, emotion, and talent anymore when you’ve got a nifty computer program?

Sure, we puny humans have been telling stories and expressing ideas for thousands of years, but we all know algorithms and predictive text are far superior.

Out with the old, in with the cold, robotic new!

Now anyone with an internet connection can instantly generate their own website content, social media posts, and email newsletters! You know, all that boring stuff we writers used to get paid to do. Be it very little in most cases.

Now it’s free! Mostly.

With AI tools, generating hundreds of blog articles takes no time at all! Who cares if half of them don’t make any sense? Quantity over quality, baby!

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