Author: admin

If you’re having one of those days.

Go give Ari some love.

I’m a massive lover of music, especially old school hip hop.

What Ari does is, he goes around NY creating live beats and the musicians that pop up to spit a few bars or drop a few verses are just unreal.

It’s insane to think that there are musicians of that calibre just walking among us.

What makes this even more beautiful though is how it brings us all together.

There’s enough me me me content out there. There’s enough negativity being rammed down our throats in the news and every other social media platform.

If we consume too much of it. We end up flying off the rails mentally.

So again, if you’re having one of those days or even weeks.

Go give Ari some love.

Before you know it, you’ll be binging all of the content.

Stephen Walker.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

So I’ve been scooping around some of my notebooks where I’ve studied some classic works and poems.

Dante missed one when he mapped out the circles of hell.

He couldn’t have predicted the 10th circle…

The one we’re all being dragged into as we barrel toward 2026.

Welcome to the circle of AI marketing horseshit.

This is where humanity goes to die in a sea of uncanny valley bullshit.

This is where people who’ve never written a genuine sentence in their lives suddenly become “content creators” because they learned to prompt engineer their way to mediocrity.

Where every email, every post, every piece of “creative” work feels like it was churned out by the same soulless robo-rithm, optimised for engagement but devoid of any actual human fingerprints.

They’re all gargling on the balls of AI-Jesus, claiming skills they don’t possess, flooding the world with content that technically functions but feels as emotionally satisfying as eating cardboard. (I’ve tried eating carboard and yeah, it’s not fun or tasty)

Everything sounds the same. Everything feels manufactured. Everything lacks the beautiful imperfection that makes writing actually worth reading.

The 10th circle is essentially a place where heavily optimised copy that hits all the right psychological triggers lands, but has no pulse, no blood. No nothing at all.

But you can escape it in 2026…

Write true to yourself. Be raw. Be open. Be broken. Show the world all your warts and scars and fuck ups because that’s what matters and that’s where the real connections are formed.

Your humanity is your competitive advantage right now.

Your poetry, your bare naked soul, your willingness to bleed on the page. These are the things that AI can’t replicate, no matter how sophisticated it becomes.

Show up even when you want to give up. Even when you feel like crawling six feet underground and staying there. Show up especially then, because that’s when your writing has weight, when it carries the full burden of being human.

People don’t want perfect. They want real.

They want to be part of a world that feels lived in, not generated like some minecraft world.

They want to be indoctrinated into something genuine, something that pulses with actual blood instead of boring 1’s and 0’s.

I definitely don’t want to drown in that 10th circle and I’m sure as hell certain you don’t want to either.

The only way out is to be human.

That’s it.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. I like to make people read interesting ideas and so if you’ve never read Inferno, Canto I by Dante Alighieri. Skip on over with this incredibly long link…

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

This is a quick one today.

So remember this…

Writing can be an escape. Writing can be an act of optimism. Writing can be an act of resistance. Writing can be rage, spite, power. It can be the way out, or the way in. Stories have meaning. Your stories matter. Your art matters.

It’s tough out there if you’re the one sitting behind the keyboard and banging away endlessly at something that doesn’t feel like taking shape just yet.

We need your art, your soul and everything else in between.

As the world seems to become colder every day, this is the time for you to keep going.

Whether you’re running on tight deadlines for some ad copy that needs to go live or if you’re struggling to kill off a character in a story you’re writing…

You just need to keep going.

And if you want escape for a little moment and figure out this craft a little more…

On Writing by Charles Bukowski might be able to rip you out of the looming burnout you might be feeling.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. If you have some book recommendations you’ve loved lately, please hit me up and share them with me.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

If you do this, you’re not a creator you deem to be.

I’d just call you a rolling public hazard instead.

It fees like only last night I doom scrolled for exactly nine minutes and watched no fewer than seven, well known marketers, copywriters, and coaches film vertical “value bombs” while actively driving sixty plus on the highway. One hand flapping at the camera.

(This was a few years ago before the big ol’ covid hit us)

But the funny thing is.

A good friend of mine reached out to me to let me know that they’ve also just witness yet another massive influencer in our world take it upon themselves to do this type of stupid shit today. So it looks like it’s all coming back again…

You watch these videos and you see their eyes darting down to the screen every three seconds.

Mouth running about “morning routines” and “funnel hacks” while they pilot two tons of steel through traffic…

I can feel my blood pressure red line when I see these videos.

Not because I’m some pearl clutching saint. (Here comes the soap box rant)

I curse like a sailor and my own camera roll would probably get me locked up for not following certain rules from the Geneva convention, but because this specific flavour of narcissism is legitimately fucking dangerous.

You are not that important.

Your “three mindset shifts to 10x your revenue” are not urgent enough to justify gambling with a stranger’s life.

Or your own kid’s. Or mine.

Here’s what actually happens when you hit record behind the wheel…

Your reaction time collapses to drunk driver levels.

Your field of vision shrinks to whatever fits inside that glowing rectangle.

The 4 000-pound machine you’re steering becomes a heat seeking missile with a personal brand.

Someone dies so you can get 38,000 views and a dopamine hit (???)

And the sickest part?

These are the same people selling $2,997 courses on “authentic leadership,” “building trust,” and “serving your audience at the highest level.”

You cannot claim to care about people and then film yourself actively trying to kill them for engagement. So I did what any sane person would do.

I unfollowed.

I unsubscribed.

I blocked.

I reported a handful for community guidelines violations (because yes, recording while driving is against platform rules on TikTok and Instagram, go look it up)

And I felt… cleaner.

Look, I get it. The algorithm is a jealous god. Silence feels like death. You’re terrified that if you’re not constantly visible, the grift collapses and you’ll have to get a real job.

But here are your options, genius.

Pull the hell over.

Wait until you’re parked or home.

Voice note it and have an assistant transcribe (radical, I know)

Or and this one’s free.

Shut the fuck up until you’re not operating heavy machinery.

Anything else makes you a reckless asshole cosplaying as a thought leader. If you’re reading this and feeling called out. Good.

Change. Today.

Your audience will survive ten minutes without your face. If you’re reading this and nodding along, reply and tell me the class of person who you just unfollowed.

I’ll start. That funnel guy with the rented Lambo.

The mindset chick who cries on cue.

The LinkedIn bro who says “discipline” 40 times per video.

Your turn.

And if you ever catch me doing this shit, publicly drag me. I deserve it.

Drive safe.

Create responsibly.

Or get the hell off my timeline.

P.S. If this email made you angry, ask yourself why you’re defending attempted vehicular manslaughter for clout. Then go touch grass. Preferably after you’ve parked.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

I had the cruelest dream.

It’s 1999. Saturday morning. Sun’s slicing through the blinds like it’s got nowhere better to be.

I roll out of bed, boxers half mast, hair looking like I lost a fight with a lawnmower.

Stumble to the kitchen, pour a bowl of Frosties so big it’s basically a helmet.

Milk sloshes over the edge because who gives a shit, it’s Saturday.

Back to my room. Obviously the sacred cave for your average teenager.

Computer’s already humming.

Hit the power button on the monitor, crackle crackle, then the glorious screech of dial up.

That modem sound? Pure fucking dopamine. 56k of screaming plastic angels singing me into the promised land.

While it connects I’m shovelling cereal, milk dripping down my chin like a savage.

Finally it connected.

Straight to Blogspot.

My little corner of the internet that exactly twelve weirdos read. There’s three new comments on last night’s post about how Radiohead’s new album is going to ruin music forever (I was wrong, sue me)

One from some dude in Ohio who said Ok Computer actually saved his life and Kid A will be amazing when it comes out.

One from a girl in Sweden who just wrote “lol same.”

One from my friend Mike calling me an asshole.

I reply to all of them. Actual conversation. No likes, no ratios, no subtweets…

Just words, back and forth, like passing notes in class but the classroom is the whole planet.

I hammer out a quick post…

Something stupid about how I’m convinced the Millennium Bug is real and we’re all going to die listening to Vengaboys or some stupid shit.

Hit publish. Log off.

And in that moment I remember that he internet doesn’t own me.

It’s a place I visit, not a fucking live in.

Then I’m out the door. Meeting the friends at the record shop.

We’re gonna blow our paper round money on imported singles and lie to each other about how many cigarettes we’ve smoked.

Life is small, slow, beautiful. Tactile. Real.

And then I wake up.

It’s 2025.

Phone’s already in my hand before my eyes are open. Notifications stacked like Jenga blocks made of pure spite, anxiety and rage.

Elon’s ratioing someone.

Another crypto thing died.

Someone I went to school with is now a tradwife influencer selling $79 candles that smell like “masculine discipline.”

The UK’s on fire, again.

America’s on fire… still lol.

My neck hurts from scrolling in bed. My attention span is a chewed up piece of gum.

I haven’t spoken to another human in real life without a screen between us in… fuck, I can’t even remember.

We had it. We actually fucking had it.

A version of the internet that was playgrounds and treehouses and secret notes, not this endless scrolling trench warfare.

We built the walls ourselves, brick by brick, like by like, outrage by outrage. We handed over our souls for dopamine hits while being lie that it’s also connection.

And now we live in the sludge.

Everything’s too loud, too fast, too fake.

Everyone’s performing. Everyone’s exhausted. Everyone’s lonely as hell in a crowd of ten thousand followers.

I miss the screech of that modem. I miss waiting. I miss logging off.

I miss when the internet was a place you went, not a place that went inside you and set up fucking camp.

What the hell did we do?

Why did we let them turn paradise into this screaming landfill?

I just want to go back to sleep and never wake up in this timeline again.

Cause before we know it. We’ll be stuck inside while everything is automated for us. I mean they’re already automating people’s thoughts…

Stephen Walker.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

This is the tech-y email you need to pay attention to.

Fraud and identity theft is at an all time high right now.

“But Stephen, I’m good. My security is on point!”

It might be. Until it isn’t.

People have weak ass passwords. They have old mobile numbers and email addresses attached to accounts they use daily, and allow absolute fucking weirdos who they have never interacted with before, to follow them on their social media platforms as “friends”

That is only scratching the surface of how weak everything is in general.

(I won’t go into AI duplication, and social engineering because that is a whole universe of horror in it’s own right)

But don’t forget. Size matters when it come to password security.

As of this year. Comparitech’s report highlights that 65.8% of compromised passwords were under 12 characters in length, which is the minimum that “most experts recommend.” On the flip side, only 3.2% were 16 characters or longer. Understandable, considering that it’s difficult to remember multiple long passwords without a password manager.

But password managers of weirdos.

Anyways.

The reason I’m telling you to make sure you’re updating your email address security is, the amount of people who have had whole account jacked because of piss poor security is off the charts.

You see people’s accounts on social media get taken over and in most cases, especially the online space, their livelihoods are stripped because of it.

It’s not a fun thing to do.

If you’re making a brand new email address. Make sure you log into all of your accounts that you use and manually update those accounts to your new email address. Followed by re-verifying two factor authentication and all of that bullshit. Also make sure you never re-use a password (I know we’ve all been guilty of it) and even if you need to re-use a password and add a little variation spice to it. Add some extra characters/symbols or whatever. But with a new email address PLEASE make something incredibly complex and tattoo it into your frontal lobe.

Same thing applies if you’re gonna change your mobile number in the new year. (New year new me lol)

The same day you decide to do it. Log in to all of your important accounts and remove two factor authentication and delete that mobile number. Then once you have your new mobile number, go back in and re-activate it all.

Yes I know it’s a pain in the balls but hey, it has to be done.

It’s getting increasingly harder to stay secure.

And the only way to stay full secure is to set everything else on fire and go live in a cabin in the woods. (Still subscribed to my emails though)

Stephen Walker.

P.S. Always a fun little read to scare yourself into security submission

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom