The Art of the Zag

Deleting your em dashes isn't enough. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch on the hidden force driving the anti-AI writing revolution, and what it actually takes to sound nothing like a machine.About Gretchen McCulloch:Gretchen McCulloch is an internet linguist and the author of the New York Times bestseller Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language. She is the Resident Linguist at WIRED and co-hosts the linguistics podcast Lingthusiasm.Chapters:(00:00) Becoming an internet linguist (07:24) When you got online matters most (14:41) Is there an anti-AI writing movement? (19:19) How the boomer voice got invented (28:41) Why we need to sound less like each other (38:22) What machine translation teaches us about AI writing (46:04) Why the em dash became the villain (57:25) Gretchen's counterintuitive idea

Substack scans for AI. LinkedIn added a slop button. Anthropic watermarked Claude. A $2.4M novel collapsed. Joe and Shane break down five stories defining the AI writing vibe shift.(00:00) Ravers live the longest(05:10) Super Skill predictions come true(06:50) Substack, Pangram, Claudefishing(13:55) Shane's AI detector test backfired(19:32) The ESL defense, and a bad manuscript(24:47) LinkedIn's "Seems Like AI Slop" button(29:56) Why the word "slop" hits a nerve(36:43) Claude's invisible watermark(43:23) The $2.4M novel deal collapse(58:04) Clay and Buffer reverse course

Joe and Shane break down the five ideas they can't stop thinking about in 2026: friction-maxxing, the Unicontext, the Experience Economy, the Inauthenticity Tax, and why SaaS is in trouble.Chapters: (00:00) Stealing Derek Thompson's format(04:03) Friction-maxxing(07:59) Facebook's "frictionless sharing"(16:35) The Unicontext(21:07) The chicken enchilada problem(31:16) The Experience Economy(38:09) The Inauthenticity Tax(47:59) SaaS is f*cked

Shane Snow and Sylvia Brindis lost their funding six weeks before shooting. They pivoted and built Fluff Piece, a kids' show that teaches media literacy—now on Amazon's Wonder Project. Can it save our kids from the fake news dystopia?About Sylvia Brindis:Sylvia Brindis is an actor, writer, and producer, and the co-creator and star of Fluff Piece, the media-literacy kids' series on Amazon's Wonder Project channel. She plays reporter Fiona Flash.Chapters:(00:00) Shane's hiatus: they made a TV show(01:59) What Fluff Piece actually is(04:31) Funding vanished 6 weeks out(09:14) Why media literacy, and Blue Drink(15:58) Make the whole season first(26:03) Raising the money, selling the show(38:02) Where AI helped and where it flopped(52:00) Cognitive friction and closing zags

AI now polls worse than ICE. Joe and Shane break down five stories of the AI revolt: booed CEOs, Gen Z sabotage, a $500M Claude Code bill, and the parent rebellion nobody’s pricing in. Chapters:(00:00) The AI backlash is everywhere(03:00) AI now polls worse than ICE(08:15) The real story of the Luddites(17:05) Eric Schmidt gets booed(29:42) Is the jobpocalypse canceled?(48:08) The $500M Claude Code bill(01:02:45) Parents vs. AI in NYC schools(01:08:51) Joe's 2028 election prediction