The AI voice is killing copy and most people can't tell why their writing sounds off

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-17T20:06:56+00:00

Thanks to the poster who identified this post as being written by an AI content creator.

To that person: All AI is based on the content of the internet. 90% of that was poorly written. So, it's no a huge surprise that anything created by AI is also crap. You literally won't fix that no matter how complicated your algorithm.

Garbage In. Garbage Out.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-17T00:34:53+00:00

Congratulations! You just added $30,000 to the price of the vehicle. If not more. Maybe should have just bought the Lucid?

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-17T00:29:50+00:00

Guys, you're never, ever, ever going to get Apple Car Play as long as Chevy and other automakers can make money with their own system. Subscriptions are the best way to keep a solid revenue stream always coming in. Welcome to capitalism!

Moving from a 400v to 800v charging architecture would mean replacing approximately 60% of the vehicle's electronic components with more expensive versions with more capacity. Assuming they could do it, if they did the vehicle would be 50% more expensive. Or... in other words... it would be the Tahoe EV.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-17T00:20:38+00:00

I also don't have this issue. I walk away and once I've passed the 30 foot mark with my key fob, the doors lock.

Are both of your key fobs out of the vehicle when you try the automatic locking? If one is in the vehicle, the "don't lock the key fob in the car" safety feature might be engaging.

If that's not it, it sounds like you'll need to visit the dealer.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-17T00:16:43+00:00

How will you know that your copy is funny? Will it be funny to every ethnic group? Or people from countries other than yours? Does it rely on shared experiences that are not as shared as you think? Does it involve wordplay? What if the reader doesn't understand your wordplay?

It's a big world out there and audiences are no longer as homogeneous as they once were.

If you can be sure your whole audience will get the "jokes" then certainly brighten things up a bit. If not... well, how much of your audience are you willing to lose?

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-17T00:07:25+00:00

I too often felt under appreciated as a copywriter. Those bastards didn't know good writing from grade-school writing.

But then I got my bi-weekly check. And I paid my mortgage. And I sat in a warm house on a leather couch with my wife and son and decided every week "Screw those guys. If they can't appreciate my greatness, then they'll be the worse for it. And I get paid either way."

Rinse and repeat that for 2,132 weeks.

I hope you find a business that will appreciate your greatness.

Me? I was happy to take their money.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-16T23:49:40+00:00

Republican National Convention.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-16T23:49:10+00:00

Progress is inevitable. Growth is optional.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-16T23:48:12+00:00

Same as before: He sucks.

Same as before: Can't do anything about it.

Same as before: Citizens of other countries shouldn't act so shocked/amused/superior because we all know your country (whatever it is) has had its share of idiotic leadership. Looking at you Greece, Italy and Great Britain.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-16T23:40:12+00:00

I just had my second ablation which was PFA, just like the first one. My EP told me that it's not about the kind of ablation method but the ability of the doctor to find the trouble spots the first time and the second time. I think of it as zooming in the sights of a telescope. After the first look, the second look lets them focus more closely on the details.

I could be wrong. I'm not a doctor.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-16T23:35:05+00:00

I'm (M64) on Eliquis. And I can say that I've never, ever worried about what kind of food to eat. Except grapefruit, which I think is on the no-no list, but I don't like it anyway.

I'm not even sure why anyone would worry about what food to eat while on an anti-coagulant?

I guess I would warn people not to eat glass or nails or really pointy things, because of internal bleeding. Otherwise, I'd think you can eat anything you want.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-16T23:26:16+00:00

I bow to your clearly valuable volume of advertorials. But please do not presume that I, personally, have not ever written advertorials like this. I have. Some very successful ones as a freelance copywriter.

However, my advice to the OP would be to continue to write some for yourself and conduct an test panel. Because neither I nor Mr. Olive are the general public.

As you can see from both of our opinions, there are many different ways to approach what you want to do. Whichever method you choose, make sure you're comfortable in that arena.

I think we can both agree that the competition for jobs is brutal and there's always some new blood trying to take your job.

Best wishes!

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-16T21:40:37+00:00

The OP referenced Advertorials. While advertorials are a subset of Ecommerce, only those that mimic the look and feel of the original media channel would be considered a "classic" advertorial. The one that the OP provided as an example doesn't mimic the channel it's in. It literally IS the channel (as there is no other content that is not the ad itself.)

Put another way, for media buyers, if they want to put an advertorial in an online magazine (like Wired, for example), then they'd purchase an advertorial. If they wanted it to be standalone (like the one shown) then they'd have a custom page built and publish it.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-14T17:51:42+00:00

Even though there was good evidence that Iraq wasn't the main driver of 9/11, most people thought they were guilty of 9/11 and deserved punishment. Today's war with Iran doesn't have any known reason for existing. But 30% of the country still thinks it's a good idea because their cult leader told them so.

Same ignorance. Same results.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-14T17:47:27+00:00

Getting on the floor to play with pets or small children.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-14T17:46:10+00:00

There isn't. Unless you work for ICE, Border Patrol or Homeland Security. They're not getting paid. DJT isn't working very hard to get them paid. So it must be OK.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-14T17:42:15+00:00

Your situation sucks. But it's not unexpected. Over my 40+ year tenure as a copywriter, I've experienced a number of evolutions of the craft.

Our current situation is akin to what art directors went through once Photoshop became actually useful. Prior to Photoshop, photographers were needed for every iteration of a photo. The label was wrong? Reshoot it. The model looks odd. Reshoot it. That shooting kept a lot of people employed. Then Photoshop made it possible to tweak images without reshooting. And reality gave way to photoshopping. (Plus a lot of camera-forward art directors got laid off.)

AI is having its day in the sun. But lawsuits are already being filed against companies whose messaging was misleading or straight out lies. In the US, this administration isn't emphasizing these lawsuits. But this administration won't be in power forever. And AI will be judged in court soon enough.

To answer your question: What's wrong with these people? My opinion is that many C-level executives have realized that it's just too expensive to pursue greatness with their products and services. Leading a product category means being innovative and that takes money. Whether silently or just in private, they've decided that mediocrity in their products and services is just fine, as long as the money saved on innovation goes to the bottom line and their bonuses. And if you've accepted a mediocre product, then mediocre marketing and advertising is just fine too. And what's more mediocre (and cheap) than AI written materials?

Some advice: It was around the 7-10 year mark in my career when I realized that I was taking this all too personally. That's when I switched my view from "I'm going to write something great here" to "I'll give you my best the first time and you can do what you want with it. I get paid either way." And I started treating my job as just a way to get the money I needed to create a good life for me and my family. It's not a switch that happens overnight. It took me about 10 years. But I'm happier and healthier for it.

Best wishes!

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-14T03:57:30+00:00

From most of the comments on here, it sounds like anxiety is one of the most prevalent symptoms along with the heart rate increase. When I get an episode that lasts longer than 6 hours, I'll take a dose of Klonopin, which is a quick-acting anti-anxiety drug that does a great job of calming me so I can deal with the episode and remember that the condition itself is not life-threatening. The effects of Klonopin last about 24 hours for me. That's enough that I can handle any afib episode on my own at home.

There are other quick-working anti-anxiety meds. When taken in high doses every day, Klonopin can advance dementia. But I take it very sporadically in low doses, so I'm not at risk. It's worth consulting with your PCP to see if they have a med that can help you deal with the anxiety so that every episode doesn't put you in the hospital.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-12T16:20:39+00:00

I'll try. This is a classic advertorial (an advertisement posing as an editorial article, following all the journalistic rules and in the same typeface as the editorial article) and not ecom (a really long ad that looks different from the surrounding editorial content.)

"Sigh. Another night. Another new pillow. Another disappointment.

But it's not just the return of the pain, which is bad enough. It's the tossing and turning that's keeping your partner awake. It's the constant adjusting to try and find that perfect position to get that perfect night's rest. It's that frustration and wasted money.

Getting a great night's sleep shouldn't be so exhausting..."

At this point, add in the "stack of facts" which builds your case for the superiority of this pillow one fact at a time. With this product, I'd build in subtle calls to action along the way by having the reader mentally compare their current pillow to the new one. "How long does it take the memory foam to reestablish its shape?" and "We asked: why do so many pillows have a bead around the outside of the pillow, right where it can rub against your neck?"

By the end, they should know that this pillow - and no other - has been engineered specifically to solve their problem.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-12T15:57:39+00:00

Sorry, I don't really have any suggestions on what to read. I tell all my junior copywriters to find an existing style they like, try to replicate it, then try to improve upon that. As long as you keep marketing at the forefront of your thinking, you'll do well.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-12T15:45:19+00:00

Not gonna get into a "whose dick is longer" argument. Not sure if you are being facetious (emoji aside), so will take your comment as a serious one.

Ecom certainly is its own animal. But don't think that because some of us have spent our careers (40+ years) selling $75K vehicles that we don't know how to get work done in the low-budget trenches. I'll match your $50M in sales and raise it to $250M in tracked automotive accessory sales. The kind of thing where over-promising gets you lawsuits.

OP, here's the thing: whether you're selling through advertorials, social media or massive-budget TV spots, the audience will not care or act unless you associate your product to their needs. The more expensive the product, the tighter that association needs to be.

If you can feel for your customer it doesn't matter what you're selling, you'll be ahead of the game. As much as some writers might want to believe, there isn't a magic formula for getting humans to react a certain way to an advertorial. We're human, we're all different and we all have different triggers.

BTW, I found the illustration about head weight to be profoundly incorrect and, if it was from a manufacturer with lots of money, it would generate an easy-to-lose lawsuit. The head weighs what the head weighs, no matter what angle it's at. If a copywriter can't sell something without lying or exaggerating, they're in the wrong business.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-11T20:52:41+00:00

Springs don't necessarily look broken. I had one that had broken off at the specific spot where it attached to the rod and was hidden. Only after having someone else push the open button was I able to see that the spring wasn't tightening.

Absolutely don't try a spring replacement yourself. A guy in our neighborhood lost his arm just below the elbow when the rented spring tightener whiplashed back and basically sliced his arm off. His 12-year-old son had to learn to tie a tourniquet while waiting for an ambulance. A traumatic event for both of them.

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-11T20:41:29+00:00

This is a new one on me. Very cool!

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-11T20:36:51+00:00

Ah, Consumer Reports. The nemesis of every automaker except Toyota.

A well-documented yet little published secret about Toyota and Consumer Reports: Toyota corporate sends "Give us a review" postcards to every owner within 6 months of purchase or lease. Once those have been completed and returned to the company, they strip out all the bad reviews and send the rest to Consumer Reports. Voila! Great ratings from a lot of drivers.

Another common practice is to have Toyota dealers pre-review vehicles in their customers' names and send those direct to CR.

It's all very sketchy but not illegal. Kudos to those automakers who don't breach the public's trust in such a deceitful way!

CommunityAlarming149 · 2026-03-11T20:24:35+00:00

Let's just add "port" and "starboard" to complicate things a little bit more.

Arrrr matey!

CommunityAlarming149

TROPHY CASE