I have a mission—to rid the internet of smut content.
No, it’s not what you’re probably thinking. Although it’s likely just as lost a cause.
Smut is a kind of fungus that shows up as dark, sooty spores. Over time, smuts can choke off leaves’ photosynthesis.
Some varieties grow on the leaves of fruit trees by feeding on the sticky residue left by sap-sucking insects like ants, aphids, and scale bugs. These parasites further infest and eventually kill their hosts.
I spent six hours ridding my potted clementine and Meyer lemon trees of smut last weekend. Scale had already depleted the smut in many places, creating a habitat that attracted more scale bugs.
It’s a symbiosis that slowly chokes out other life unless you catch it soon enough. You have to prune the worst branches and wash off every single remaining leaf, one-by-one, by hand.
That’s what I mean by smut content. It’s the opportunistic crap attracted by scale bugs (all those 10x-ification pricks, for example). Smut content is content about making more smut content, especially if you buy this framework or follow that template to scale your reach.
Believe me, the sap is starting to run dry. I’m hearing many people say they’re leaving this or that platform or strongly considering it. Many leaves and branches were left sticky and lifeless. Ready for the next stage of decay in the life cycle, AI content.
But we can spend some time and care to heal it if we dare. Let’s start leaving the dead branches to the scale bugs and smut. Prune our networks. Plant our own. Let’s make it a movement.
