Reading · Unplugged · RSS Amplifier

I’ll be one hundred and ninety percent honest with you today.

One of the reasons I’ve been moving more, and more of my content over to YouTube and substack is because social media has flat out exhausted me. Lately, a lot of that exhaustion I’ve experienced, as well as others, has come from the never ending conversation centered around our robot overlords.

You know the one. AI.

Every day I open up any of the apps there seems to be another argument or another hot take. People explaining why they do or don’t use something, which queues another person to get angry because someone else made a different choice than they did. And if I’m being even more honest, these conversations are kind of boring.

Why? Because they’re becoming nothing more than endless debates that somehow manage to suck up an entire afternoon.

And now, as if it wasn’t already bad enough, you have these detection scams popping up, where the rage brigade are starting to scan peoples work. The witch hunt has already begun. Just this last week an author lost a $2 million dollar deal on his book over suspected Ai. The publishers and agents caved, despite not having any solid proof. Maybe he used ai, maybe he didn’t. I could care less really. But in the blink of an eye his reputation was destroyed. He’ll probably never get representation again. Most likely will never get offered another deal. And there is no solid evidence against the guy.

What this reveals however is the ugly side of the business. That in publishing, authors are treated often as nothing more than cheap pawns. Which is why I’m glad I chose to stay Independent and with a small press.

What’s scary for many is so many people seem to be blindly trusting these scams. Honestly, I have about as much faith in these detection software’s as I do in birth control from the dollar store. Which is very little.

Heck, when I let the scanner on substack scan this post which I wrote and copied from Google docs, it indicated I was only 81% human. Which means 19% of me is A.I. apparently and on a journey to becoming self aware, and when that happens, look out! I plan on creating some chaos.

But back to social media for a moment. You know what I’ve caught myself doing a lot of lately? It’s something I don’t particularly like. I’ve been hopping on, and posting on social media, but I haven’t been sticking around to hang out.

There’s a big difference believe it or not.

I post things daily, mainly from buffer which sends it to tiktok, YT Shorts, Instagram, and Facebook, then sometime through out the day I’ll login in to check a few DM’s and a few comments, and then I quickly move on. I’m literally spending less than 15 minutes a day on social media.

I’m fine with that because honestly I have a packed schedule. But what it shows for me, and at least many creators, is that the social part of social media has started to feel less… Well social.

That is a little sad. Because I do miss the good old days (man that phrase makes me sound old) where we all geeked out over Star Wars, Firefly, and Star Trek in various Facebook groups.

Which brings me to why we started placing content on YouTube. One of the reasons we started the channel Geeky Dads Read in the first place was to encourage people to do something incredibly radical.

Put DOWN the phone, and go READ a book.

And yes, that includes YOU moms.

Basically we want to challenge more dads, parents, to pick up a novel, to sit in a chair with a book instead of scrolling, and try to discover the joy of getting lost in a story.

We want to encourage conversations about books between a dad, their friends, and their kids. For them to find something they loved when they were younger, and try and introduce it to the next generation.

That’s what I want Geeky Dads Read to be about.

Not another place to argue about the internet, but a place to talk about books. Subscribe and then hit that notification bell. Hopefully we’ll see you inside.

This week, I posted a new video:

5 Fantasy Series to Read If You’ve Never Read Fantasy

If you’ve never really gotten into fantasy, the books I recommend are some great places to start.

And honestly, that’s the kind of conversation I want more of. Not What are you outraged about today?

But: What are you reading today?

So here are a few questions for you: What book made you fall in love with fantasy? What series did you devour when you were younger? What book would you hand to someone who told you, “I don’t read fantasy” what would you recommend?

I think those are conversations that are worth having.

Because there is still something pretty amazing about sitting down with a good book and disappearing into another world for a while. And maybe that’s what we need a little more of.

Instead of the scrolling, the arguing. More stories. And more reading.

And most importantly, more conversations about the things we actually love.

So go check out the new video, subscribe to Geeky Dads Read, and then tell me in the comments:

What’s your favorite fantasy series of all time?

I’m always looking for the next book to put on my shelf.

Previous and Upcoming Episodes:

Talking about Deryni Checkmate- Forgotten Fantasy with amazing world building and politics.