Honey, I shrunk the headlines!

Every day I hop on my silly little computer to do my silly little research for my silly little articles and try and figure out wtf is going on in the world of marketing and social media.

And (recently) every day I see the same sh*t.

AI ate a new industry, the government is using social media for evil, the politics of AI, the AI of politics. That’s cool, thank you. But can someone please throw me a bone that’s not about Chatbots or Congress?

I don’t want to sound whingey and I’m aware sometimes I probably do so I promise to offer a balm here, but it’s EXHAUSTING. And not because AI and politics aren’t important - clearly, they are - but because they have swallowed the entire conversation.

If you spend your days in marketing, social media, or digital culture, I’m sure you’re not unfamiliar with the feeling of opening a tab, reading five headlines, and realising they all sound like rewrites of each other.

Déjà vu, but make it daily.

When everything starts to sound and look the same, it's increasingly hard to find a fresh angle, or even have the energy to look for one. At least, that’s my experience as of late. So if you are, too, feeling stuck, let’s unstick, together, preferably holding hands because – you know – the horrors.

AI and politics are what I’d call big-eating narratives.

They don’t trend; they devour. Once they’re in the spotlight, they push out everything else, flattening nuance and stealing attention. This makes sense, given they’re hugely important narratives in our current dystopia-esque timeline. But what happens is news cycles and publications become rinse and repeat. Everything kind of ironically feels like a bot wrote it. Even memes start to feel all too repetitive – and that’s like, their whole thing.

For people trying to write, research, or create in this space, it can feel like showing up to a party where everyone is wearing basically the same outfit and expecting you to be impressed (good luck, babe.)

So, this is where I grab your hand and say, “come with me, let’s try another door.”

The fatigue itself is a clue.

When everyone’s hammering away at the same two topics, the stories worth telling are the ones hiding in the shadows. The cracks. The overlooked details. The weird micro-trends nobody’s covered yet because everyone’s too busy debating whether Midjourney is going to put illustrators out of business (spoiler: it’s complicated, but illustrators are still here).

In other words, the fact that the conversation feels narrow means your opportunity is outside of it.

You have to break out of the freaking loop. Here’s how I attempt doing so.

1. Zoom in. Instead of the grand sweeping “AI and creativity” thinkpiece, look at what’s happening in one tiny corner. How are Etsy sellers gaming AI for cursed crochet patterns? How are Roblox kids building worlds that mirror their school cafeterias? The smaller you go, the fresher it feels.

2. Zoom out. Sometimes the trick is to go meta. Is “AI fatigue” actually just part of a bigger cultural burnout with optimisation? Are political bans on platforms really about tech, or are they about governments scrambling to control attention economies they don’t understand? Zooming out gives you perspective, and often, more interesting questions.

3. Go sideways. This is my personal favourite. My boss always says “when they zig, we zag.” So, if AI and politics are hogging the stage, go peek at the sideshow. Forums are quietly making a comeback. Tumblr just refuses to die and is, frankly, thriving in its stubborn weirdness. Even niche newsletters (hello) and zines are building little worlds away from the noise. Sometimes the most refreshing story is simply, “here’s what’s happening where nobody’s looking.”

If you’re feeling drained, here’s the good news: you’re not lazy, uninspired, or falling behind.

The bad news? We’re living through a moment where the conversation has indeed, been hijacked. The best thing you can do isn’t to join the shouting match, but to tune your ear to the whispers.

In my experience, that’s where the fun stuff lives. Rarely in the headlines that get rehashed 40 odd times, but in the scrappy, strange, very human corners of the internet that haven’t been flattened into “content.”

So let the AI-politics headlines scroll on past. Let someone else have the hot take about whether generative video will replace commercials.

Instead, go have fun digging in the cracks.

-Sophie Randell, Writer