For ease, I'll type AROUNDwithTK into a web browser to navigate to my personal lifestyle blog. It wouldn’t be much more to type [dot]com after and go directly to my website of writings, but I somewhat like to see what Google, or whatever search engine, is going to tell me... about me.
I Don't Like AI, But I'm Not Mad at What AI Has to Say About Me
AROUNDwithTK as an Internet presence has some developing to go, I see.
(And that’s no surprise, considering how Google is shitting on independent creators with AI summaries and sponsored websites taking up the bulk of the search results page… in addition to the fact that I haven’t been the most consistent in these over five years of having this personal blog.)
When I open a web browser and type around with TK, results populate for around with k. Who tf is around with k for a search engine to continuously autocorrect my query from AROUNDwithTK to around with k?! I won’t know, as I refuse to look through those results. Instead, I click the search for option for what I typed in the first place: AROUND with TK!
Did you mean? No, Google, I meant wtf I typed! Now, show results for AROUND with TK, f*ck face!
Pardon my annoyance, this has been happening for years. And each time that I think I’ve fixed it, I’ll search aroundwithtk or around with tk (spaces included) from someone else’s phone and it’ll still ask did you mean… [side eye]
Anyway, once I hit that Nene Leakes, I said what I said, and get results for the intended query, I’m not mad at the AI summary Google gives for my personal lifestyle brand, AROUND.
A different AI summary appears each time that I type around with tk into a search engine and as much as I’m anti-AI, I haven’t been mad at one of these search results yet!
I’m really a whole brand.
Content creators and “influencers” curate an image of a lifestyle leading to X purpose by stringing together Y and Z. I’m really X, Y and Z. I really and truly live the life that I intend to share on AROUNDwithTK.
The way I live isn’t a thoughtful curation of what I can put online to create a cohesive message that will easily package and sell and suck people further into late-stage capitalism. And me saying this publicly is double the proof that AROUND isn’t about packaging something to sell because not being about selling is THE LAST thing a company about selling wants to hear!
The girls will get sent a zip-lock package of collagen from TikTok shop, not know a thing about collagen nor supplements, not try to get to know about it, and make a video taking the supplement saying, “girls, go get this now” and regurgitate a claim on the back of the bag. I have even asked girls directly, why are you promoting this product [that you know nothing about fr] and the girls have responded, “I gotta get my money, sis.” If I can find some screenshots, I’ll add them. Actually, I’m not — I’m already distracted from the distraction that I got into while something else was distracting me. I don’t even know how I got here right now. Shit. You know how people will go down a rabbit hole talking, getting completely off-subject? I done gone down a rabbit whole doing, getting completely off-task. Shit. Let me wrap this up.
I give that one collagen example to note the underlying motive with MOST people’s content creation on the Internet right now. “Influencers,” ESPECIALLY, are creating from a vantage point of what can sell? and what can I show about me to help me sell?
Honestly and truly, it is a COMPLETE turn-off to me as a writer at my core. I write because I can’t not write. I’m always writing in something somewhere, since a child. Deep in one of my grandmother’s boxes once, as an adult, I found notebooks my mother had filled with pages and pages of writings, endlessly, about her day, thoughts, interactions, anything, while she was in high school! I’d never known my mother to be “a writer” nor had she ever shared anything with me about keeping a journal, yet, here I was, fresh out of high school discovering a habit I had was a habit she had too! Coincidence?!
(I think my mother is off her rocker now because she stopped writing, but that’s another story. The point is, I can’t not write; I’d lose my shit!)
Related: A Letter to My Estranged Mother on Mother's Day
Though this personal lifestyle brand bloomed when the world was in confinement, 2020, I’d had multiple websites to host writings prior, from my namesake, tekeyakrystal[dot]com to Journey of a Southern Belle and at least one of two others of which I don’t recall the name. And as mentioned, my habit of writing started where it should for everyone, offline. Surely, I’ve been writing in little notebooks and diaries from the Scholastic Book Fair since shortly after learning how to spell C - A - T, cat, C - A - T. (When I get those out of the Gros family attic back Vacherie, if that’s where they are, I’ll have to share an image of an entry).
Anyway, here I am, a writer, trying to write, who is being told at writing conferences by career writing professionals that I need to have an online presence as a writer. Not an online presence as in a website where writing samples or a little more about you as a writer is available, oh no — the people want an entire developed platform with an audience and following and social media engagement!
Girl, I used to crawl in my closet as a big middle school pre-teen to write in a journal. When I’m in my mode as a writer, I’m damn near in hiding. I’m not simultaneously tap dancing for an audience while going into flow state, not as a writer. As an orator, as a dancer, as an actress, yes. As a writer, no. As a writer, I’m going within, I’m sitting, thinking, being, observing, at most. Writing isn’t a performative act. AFTER the writer is done, I can present that writing and become someone else, but as a writer, I’m a recluse. This is coming from a person with an extremely extroverted personality!
Aie, aie, aie, I’m sliding off topic again. I’m going to have to get AI to summarize what I’ve written out of curiosity of how the search engines (all AI-powered) would read this journal entry. Am I a hypocrite for saying that I’m anti-AI while also using AI? Ugh. Don’t do it, lil’ miss T. Krys, don’t do it. [looks around]
I honestly only navigated to this blog draft page to share a screenshot that pleased me of a search result for aroundwithtk. I found it interesting how the engine had already incorporated my community organizing and involvement with active events only days after co-hosting a local group bike ride with a fellow car-free Angeleno working to make streets safer for all, Jonathan Hale.
I smiled as the search results listed themes and focus points of AROUNDwithTK:
(This particular search result said “local bicycle culture in Los Angeles” and as true as that may be, I do have content on AROUNDwithTK about biking in Los Angeles, it’s the aspect of incorporating movement into daily life that I really champion. I am in no way, shape, nor form an elite cyclist, nor in the hardcore bicycle community of Los Angeles.. shoot, I don’t think I’ve even been to cicLAvia yet, one of the largest gatherings of bike enthusiasts aroundLA! While I happen to ride a bicycle in my leisure and thoroughly enjoy riding a bicycle, I’m in full support of other ways folks find to have movement EVERY day, throughout the day! Funny enough, day-before-yesterday, I bought a scooter!)
Whew child, I’m currently a full-time student and was watching a mini-lecture by my Voice professor at SMC about registration and because it’s unlisted, I couldn’t add it to a playlist, so I said that I’d embed it on a blog page to be able to get back to it. He has PLENTY of videos in our course portal. In addition to it being easier to find the specific video I’d like to revisit as the semester comes to a close, I’ll have it after!
I was going to tell a story about how Ms. Linda at St. Mark United Methodist Church in Fairburn tried to get me to open up my throat and sing, as well as every other choir director that had come before her. Then, I was going to say how I’m obviously still struggling as an adult because SMC’s Chamber Choir director, my Voice teacher this semester, has had to work with me the most on that same element, it seems. It was a flash of deja vu when he told me to stop singing with my throat. Maybe I need to find an Indian next to help me release my throat chakra or do some shifting, there’s a blockage there. “Chest voice” isn’t quite clicking and this particular mini-lecture talks about the difference between chest voice and head voice, which made me think, I need to watch this again. A week or month, or two, from now, I could be doing the registration exercises that the voice professor demonstrates and something could start making sense.
Now, it’s hours later and I’ve not done a full 15-minute vocal warmup to get to my 30 minutes of repertoire practice and I’m going to be looking silly in front of the class tomorrow afternoon when it’s time for me to sing Nino Precioso.
And this is why I have to use AI to summarize the randomness I’ve written for an SEO description of 400 characters and an SEO title of 100 characters. Otherwise, the one Internet user out of a billion that may find this real life content of a creative living and exploring in Los Angeles interesting, that one person, may not find this page. Or, maybe, because search engines all use AI now, SEO descriptions and SEO titles of webpages to tell search engines what the content is about are irrelevant — the search engine with built-in AI will accurately pull what the content is about? [hand on chin] Hm.
I kinda don’t want to help the AI in a search engine. Those summaries are stealing views from websites. People are reading the Google summary at the top and not clicking on Aunt Sue’s Carrot Souffle recipe on her cooking blog that she slaves over when she’s not slaving over a hot stove. (This is a completely made-up example off the top of my head). Aunt Sue doesn’t get a click on this recipe she has shared because Google put all the steps and ingredients in its own Google summary, keeping the Internet user on Google. That’s not fair. I don’t want that..
I’d want an internet user using an AI-powered search engine to get help finding a specific piece of content on AROUNDwithTK. That’s fine. I did it earlier in this impromptu digital journal entry when I was looking for the piece I’d written about my mother being A Brilliant Mess of a Being. I knew what I was trying to reference and wanted to go directly to it. When I typed “crazy mess of a being” into the search engine followed by “aroundwithtk”, the link that I was looking for didn’t pop up. And this is me, the writer, trying to find my own writing, typing words that I KNOW are in the piece. (Oh, now that I look at it, the word crazy isn’t in there, I guess.. anyway…)
As a person who uses AI that’s anti-AI, I feel a constant confliction while appreciating the convenience of AI-powered search engines.
I typed my query into Google search for my own blog post. Before listing any possible website links for which I was looking, the search engine generated a response. The personification of an inanimate object, the trying to make an AI language model as human as possible is what irks my asshole. You see, the “let me know how I can best support you” bullshit! Disgusting. There are people dumb enough to believe AI is a companion. To avoid annoyance, I’ve gotten good at not even reading the end of AI responses. Unsurprisingly, I’m seeing that line now after pasting the screenshot into the blog page.
Though the software trying to connect on a human-level grosses me out, sounds like you’re navigating a whirlwind right now [rolls eyes], something about the accuracy of “TK often writes about chaotic, transparent, and vulnerable realities of navigating growth, adulthood and finding oneself” is validating. It’s nice to know it may not be a whole bunch of incoherent nonsense up on my site.
Overlooking points of contention and focusing on what I want, I continue the search query for the blog post about my mom, typing “specific post from TK.”
Even though I don’t like AI, I can’t deny its accuracy on what I’ve written and shared via AROUNDwithTK.
This darn AI-powered search engine helped me find exactly what I was trying to find!
Man, as anti-AI as I am, that’s pretty freaking cool.
Or, maybe, I’m a narcissist that goes goo-goo for constant affirmation and validation and that’s why I can’t resist the urge for my ego to be stroked by an AI language model.
Okay, my rappel d’aller au lit has popped up on my phone. Votre coucher est prévu pour 21:50. Le retour au calme commencera bientôt. It’s time for me to go to bed.
Damn, I see why bitches can’t stand me. I’m fine af from living an active lifestyle, I’m brilliant, bilingual and still a cool ass bitch because my got damn mama is bat shit?! I might be mad too.
Look, I typed the blog title, SEO title, SEO description, and of course all the text of this digital journal entry myself, straight off the dome and I was still curious to see how it’d be summarized by software. I did a copy/paste of everything that I wrote in this blog post over to ChatGPT and it generated the following.
Summary: An unapologetically candid digital journal entry exploring the complicated relationship between artificial intelligence, search engines, independent creators, and authentic self-expression. Through humorous tangents and personal reflections, T.K. examines what it means to be a writer who creates out of necessity rather than monetization, the pressure to build an online presence, and the unexpected satisfaction of seeing AI recognize the personality and purpose behind AROUNDwithTK. Along the way, she shares glimpses of her creative life, community involvement, active lifestyle, and ongoing journey of growth in Los Angeles.
For those that read this whopper, what are your thought of this AI-generated summary?
I’m T.K, a girl living in L.A., finding her own little way. Other writers have readers; I have riders. I hope you’ll stick AROUND ❤︎