Fighting the Attack of the Clones

 

It's May 4th, the perfect time to bring up Star Wars.

But I'm not doing the standard post. Instead, I'm waging my own war on cloning, which is why I selected the image of the poster for Star Wars Episode II Attack of the clones movie poster.

If you haven't seen it, the clones in the title are the duplicates of Jango Fett who requests one clone for himself that grows at the normal pace rather than the expedited one set for the clones made for the Empire to serve as storm troopers.

In the foreground you see Jango Fett (what you can see of someone in Mandalorian armor and helmet) along with our other main characters. But the clones themselves who are even named in the title practically fade into the background.

Why? It's because clones are not interesting. We're interested in characters who have their own personality and story -- not interchangeable copies.

Have you guessed yet where I am going with this?

AI slop is a real life attack of the clones

What we've come to see on this platform, as well as many others, is the equivalent of an attack of clones, that AI slop that has no character and holds no real interest. Often it's used in clickbait or engagement posts like this one from Technology Advice:

But you see it also in standard ads like this one.

However, it could also be put in standard posts, as I now see hundreds -- if not thousands -- of people allowing

LLMs to talk for them on LinkedIn, as you see in the examples below that all sound exactly alike.

It makes the platform sound completely repetitive and everyone who uses the formula utterly forgettable.
By adopting the quick and lazy approach of allowing generative AI to write your posts, you turn yourself and your brand into a clone, robbing yourself of the opportunity to establish a unique identity and voice.

If you hire a content marketers whose posts have the earmarks of AI, as in using this kind of construction - "Most businesses don't have a marketing problem. They have a sameness problem." (So ironic that this person put in that message through generative AI-speak that reinforces sameness!) -- then you're paying for a cloned content rather than content that is specific to what you're about.

And why would you do that? It's like paying a chef to cook you a meal from scratch only to be served microwaved TV dinner.

It's possible to cook up something good when you actually like the challenge of cooking with the ingredients available to you. If you don't, you shouldn't be a cook. Heating up TV dinners is not cooking, and pushing out AI slop is not creative content marketing.

It takes a bit of effort to differentiate yourself 

It is possible to do better with just a bit of effort from someone who cares about the craft of writing and marketing. I'll give you quick example based on one of the many posts that used the formula in a promoted ad. 

It says "Your BD person
isn't failing.
You set them up to. "

Notice that the second sentence doesn't logically follow the first at all. In fact, it contradicts the first because it acknowledges that the BD person is -- in fact -- failing, though it blames the "you" rather than "them" in this case.

This kind of illogical nonsense said with a straight face by people who think they sounds smart is the result of being so used to seeing this pattern of posts that you don't even pause to think if it makes any sense.

Here's what they could have written instead with a logical progression.:
"Is your BD team coming up short?
It's not their fault.
You set them up for failure."

There is an affordable alternative to AI 

Perhaps one of the reasons people let the opportunity to truly connect with customers through their communications slip through their fingers is because they think that they can't afford to pay for quality content. That is as ridiculous as saying you'll just eat food out of vending machines to save money on groceries. That is not sustainable and can cause real harm like vitamin deficiency, high blood pressure,  and even diabetes. Compromising on content quality is the same thing. You can get cheap and fast but not good enough to contribute to your overall health when you rely on LLM output. 

So here's my affordable plan to help you avoid turning into a clone that just fades into the background: a special package offered in May and June 2026 only!    Get a consultation and a plan for social media posts that attract organic traffic through differentiated messaging and a distinctly human voice for just $1500.  Contact me for details. 

And for proof of my writing ability, check out my many publications assembled on my portfolio where you can search by topic. 

Mixed Reality Marketing

Picture to illustrate app courtesy of Trigger

Mixed reality experiences began playing an important role in marketing a few years ago. Jason Yim, the CEO of Trigger, “The Mixed Reality Agency™,” explained what makes it so effective.  

“On the marketing side, there are two big things that mixed reality can do that others can't,” says Yim. “One is product visualization and the second is the sharing of user-generated social content.”

Read more in 

Why Marketing Through Mixed Reality Works

STEM for women not happening in Star Wars

In November 2016, NASA shared this short video as a tribute from cast from Star Wars to honor the women at NASA who serve as “engineers, aviators, research scientists, astronauts and more are making a future possible for humanity in a galaxy far far away.” This is somewhat ironic in light of what followed in the Star Wars franchise.

In December 2016, the Star Wars film Rogue One was released with a female hero at the center of the film, and there were a couple of female fliers to be seen among the rebels. But the role of scientists and engineers were all held by men. The protagonist’s father was the chief scientist leading whose team of engineers were all men. Even if the film makers didn’t want to go so far as making the protagonist’s mother the scientist, they could have at least allowed for some female representation on the Empirical engineering department, but no.

So progressiveness in representation on film still has a long way to go. But the good news is that in real life and in our own galaxy women are doing better than they are in the Empire with respect to such positions.
Read more in Star Wars: Not Yet a Galaxy of Equal Opportunity

Star Trek and the final frontier of currency

Yes, I did get paid to write about Star Trek, at least in terms of envisioning money in the future in works of science fiction. I also mention Star Wars and The Handmaid's Tale.

 Part of the geek appeal for Bitcoin users is that it is a real-life example of a concept often featured in science fiction or sci-fi-oriented computer games: an advanced, universally accepted form of currency.

Universally accepted forms of payments become essential in a society in which space travel enables humans – and other sentient beings – to hop from planet to planet inhabited by civilizations of all kinds. Read more in Is Bitcoin science fiction come to life?