The Wrong Debate
Soulless and Empty Feeds
Creators have been asking a question that was right at one point in time. But now it puts them behind because times have changed. Short vs. long-form content was a huge debate at one point. As soon as Reels and YouTube Shorts were introduced, the practicality of uploading short-form content made more sense. And it worked. But now it’s no longer about whether content is short or long. It’s about intention, authenticity, effort, and respecting your audience.
People Can Tell
Scrolling on any social media platform isn’t the same anymore. There’s something off about the content. It feels soulless and empty. People immediately figure out when content was completely created using AI. How squeaky clean the script is. The similarity of language and tone. The captions seem like they were written by the same voice. It just feels dead. And people are noticing it.
They’ve even started to popularize the phrase ‘AI slop’ to describe how unoriginal and crappy the content is. The first emotion that’s evoked as soon as an audience recognizes AI content is disrespect. They’re turned off. They lose interest. They immediately process that there was a lack of human effort and thought put into the work. It feels like there’s a lack of respect for the audience’s interest and the time they spend watching content. While short, long, or AI content does succeed in their own ways, there’s a sense of fatigue that’s slowly creeping in on the audience.
The content seems to speak more to the algorithm than the human watching it.
People are getting better at sensing when there’s no person behind the work. And once you notice it, you can’t unsee it. The patterns become obvious. The way everything sounds like it came from the same template. The absence of anything that feels like it came from a life actually lived.
The Problem We’re Ignoring
There are still debates about short-form vs. long-form. Reels vs. YouTube. Long-form coming back. What length gets the most retention. Meanwhile, the actual problem is that most content, regardless of format, feels like it has no soul. It’s filler. It’s algorithmic. It’s made because someone had to post something, not because they had something to say. Something exciting to share. Something profoundly human that might strike emotions. Something that hit them like a truck after a week of
going in circles.
Quality has gone down the drain slowly. The intention and soul behind the work seem to be disappearing more and more.
People are liking less, sharing less, caring less. Not because they’re done with social media.
But because they’re done with empty content that doesn’t respect their time and intelligence.
What Actually Cuts Through
So what works now? Not formats or hooks or the perfect first three seconds.
What works is a human being behind the work.
People are craving real stories. Content that has an idea only that person could have thought of. Something that came from their life, their observations, their specific way of seeing the world. Work that feels like effort was put into it. Not because it’s polished to death, but because someone cared enough to make it.
Whether it’s social media content, ads, films, poems, stories, or music, those who survive aren’t going to be the ones who cracked the algorithm. They’re going to be the ones who remembered that on the other side of the screen is a person. A person who’s tired of being spoken at by content designed for a machine. A person who wants to feel like their time mattered. Like the thing they just watched or read came from another human who gave a damn.
This isn’t coming. It’s already here. Care about your audience. Care about what they’d actually want to consume. And respectfully make that.
So maybe the question isn’t only about format anymore
Maybe it’s:
Would I stop scrolling for this?
Would I trust the person who made it?
Can I tell there's a person behind it at all?
