I hope Charlie Warzel is okay

Published June 27, 2026

Charlie Warzel, The Feeling of Control Slipping Away:

Culturally, the flood of slop, AI influencers, fake accounts, and AI tools is blurring the lines of an already post-truth age.

I can’t make sense of any of that!

Is an “AI influencer” an influencer whose area of influence is “AI”? Are they an approximation of a human influencer created using generative tools? Flood of slop, fake accounts. Where? Which AI tools?

I’ve followed Galaxy Brain since the height of the pandemic, even before it was aqcuired by The Atlantic. I’ve nodded along for years as Warzel wrote about internet bullshit, but lately the newsletter has gotten weird even for me.

I give myself some credit for that. If it’s become unrelatable, that’s because I’ve insulated myself from internet bullshit, which I did in part from the influence of Galaxy Brain.

I feel I owe something to Charlie Warzel and Galaxy Brain, so please send somebody to check on him. I’d hate to lose a good one to internet madness.