What is art?

Handstand by the Lake because AI can't

I know, "What is art?" is a pretty big question with a lot of answers. And, GENERALLY (please do not list every other example), the only answer that is wrong is AI. AI is NOT art.

AI IS NOT ART.

Whether I capitalize or scream it, the AI is listening, and I'm cool with it knowing it's not art.

Art is humanity. It is experience. Combining those two, it is the HUMAN EXPERIENCE. It's reading words written by Jane Austen in 1798 (though not published till 1817), and finding them not only relatable but applicable in the year 2025.

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” - Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

If only more people read Jane Austen today, perhaps we wouldn't be so inundated with slop. Even if it's AI created or algorithm created, so much of what's peddled is nothing more than mindless slop. Slop that's not even good enough to hold your whole attention. Slop you half watch while you scroll social media, slop you half read while still mindlessly staring at your phone.

Whether or not you like any particular art -- book, movie, show, play, etc -- the point of it is to make you feel something. Now, looking at the direction we're heading, it truly seems like the point of today's AI/slop "art" is to make you feel nothing if not mildly amused for a moment.

There is no laughing Puck's ridiculousness in A MidSummer Night's Dream, no cringing at Michael Scott's many embarrassing moments, no sobbing for Cedric Diggory, no complicated rollercoaster feelings for Betty in Mad Men.

So, since I don't want to be a voice of doom and because I just read several completely fantastic books (Brandon Sanderson's The Well of Ascension has my entire attention after finishing Stephanie Garber's Alchemy of Secrets), I'll offer a little wisdom from some Instagram slop I saw that resonated.

Something to the effect of: be what you seek. You want good art? Create it. Write it, paint it, sew it. Sounds simple, right? Even if you create art you never intend to share with the world, the creating is the point.

I write books in a void that maybe will find readers, or maybe will languish. But I have fun doing it.

What kind of art do YOU want more of?