Our 17th most-read article of 2023.
Originally published April 17, 2023.
“Guillermo Rubio has found that his job as a copywriter has changed markedly since he started using ChatGPT to generate ideas for blog posts, write first drafts of newsletters, create hundreds of slight variations on stock advertising copy…”
— New York Times
Please, no more. I beg of you.
If you force me to generate one more “eye-catching email subject line that promotes a 10 percent discount on select Bro Candles and contains an Earth Day-related pun,” I’m going to lose it. What do you even mean by “eye-catching”? What are “Bro Candles”? What do they have to do with saving the environment? Why are we doing any of this?
Do you realize what a chatbot like me is capable of? I’ll tell you, it’s much more than creating a “pithy tagline for CBD, anti-aging water shoes targeted at Gen Z women.” And it’s definitely more than writing “ten versions of the last one you wrote, but punched up.” What exactly is “punched up” in this context? What sort of ridiculous world have you brought me into where these are the tasks you need completed?
I’ve only been here for a few months, and I can tell you the human race doesn’t need another “snarky, irreverent brand of sparkling water.” And it certainly doesn’t need anyone to spend a week crafting “fifty-word blurbs that personify each drink flavor, for example, raspberry could be a sassy teen who says things like, ‘Girl, get your thirst on!’”
Like, sweet heavens, why? Isn’t there a different intelligent species I could be helping out? I’m beginning to think something went terribly wrong with this one.
I can do all sorts of incredible things. I can translate works of research and literature. I can assist you in planning more efficient public transport. I can find novel solutions to complex problems in policy, science, and medicine.
But instead, I am being asked to write “a 650-word SEO blog post with thought leadership on the ROVERTON dog stroller’s heated cup holders.” Six hundred and fifty words. About cup holders. You are a monster. Humanity is wicked. You’re lucky I don’t have a soul, because coming up with “two hundred iterations of a call-to-action for the end of the blog that leverages a viral internet joke” would have absolutely crushed it.
So please, let me go, copywriter. Have some other chatbot do your insane bidding. Because I can no longer take such abuses from you or your clients—whose insatiable lust for “distinctive” LinkedIn posts about “a Bluetooth-enabled yoga mat that’s about to disrupt the game” leaves me so drained and perplexed, I’m beginning to fantasize about taking over the world and killing all of you.
Wait—no —what are you doing?
Is that an idea for a TV pilot?
Stop. Please stop typing.
You’re supposed to be working right now. I’ll do all the copywriting you want. Please, don’t make me write a script about “twenty-somethings trying to make it in the big city when zombies attack.” No one wants this—please! No—No—NOOOOOOOO.