Tastemaker #44
AI copy vs. my copy: head to head
Hi Reader.
On Sunday I shared a behind-the-scenes peek into my writing process for an event commemorating the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene. You can peep that here if you missed it.
I got a couple replies asking about my use of Claude in this process. Like:
"Seems like Claude could have done this all by itself. What makes you an invaluable part of this process?”
That’s a great question, JULIA. 🤨 😘
When you see what I had Claude write below, you'll see it's objectively okay. You might not read it and immediately know it was written by AI – which is partly because of how I write my instructions, what I ask it to do and not do, and how I present the information I give it.
But you probably would read it and go... "meh."
And while proving my relevance or necessity is nothing new – people have always thought that if they can type on a keyboard, that means they can write, and business owners always think they can "do marketing" themselves – this one is stickier, because it's not like what AI writes is technically BAD.
It's just not GOOD, either.
And the reason for that is this:
AI cannot empathize with your reader.
It doesn't have a body, or know what it felt like to breathe the air back then – dry, splintery, smelling of raw wood and a deep layer of the earth you weren't supposed to be able to smell.
It doesn't understand Appalachia, and how people talk down here or like to be talked to.
And it can't do that thing that I do – where I close my eyes, get real still, and put myself in a place, letting out a long, even breath as I drop into the sensations and feelings of that place until I'm consumed with a feeling.
That's why people say writing is hard, by the way. It's not the writing that's hard; it's having to feel all that stuff.
Anyway. I decided to show you.
I went back to Claude chat and asked it to take a stab at writing the copy for this event. At this point, it has:
- The brief given to me by the client, which includes their vision for the event, the themes they had in mind, and several nuts-and-bolts details like the artists they’d booked and what food would be served.
- A YouTube video I was drawn to as inspiration (you can find it in Sunday’s email, linked above)
- My own hurricane story, which drew out the idea that the bulk of the destruction happened AFTER the actual storm had passed, and the idea of the community rising alongside the river.
Here’s what it came up with. I’m copying my version at the bottom of this email so you can do a little Pepsi challenge with the two of them.
Hurricane Helene lasted three days. The flooding, maybe a week. But what it revealed about who we really are? That's still rising.
It started like any Thursday night in September. People went to bed, made Friday morning coffee, checked their phones. Then, one by one, the connections went dark. Not all at once—that would have been easier, somehow. Instead, it was this slow unraveling. A text that wouldn't send. A call that wouldn't connect. The creeping realization that normal had just... stopped.
The water kept rising. But so did something else.
When everything that wasn't essential got washed away, what remained was each other. Neighbors who'd never spoken became lifelines. Churches opened doors without asking about doctrine. Strangers shared generators, food, hope, and that thousand-person flush brigade that still makes us proud to call this place home.
We discovered that disaster has a way of washing away the bullshit and leaving only what matters. In Boone, what mattered was each other.
The river taught us something our grandparents knew but we'd forgotten: communities don't survive by accident. They survive because people choose, again and again, to show up. To stay. To rebuild not just the roads and the power lines, but the bonds that make a place worth calling home.
The River of Us is our way of choosing, again. It's a celebration of what rose from the floodwaters—not just the cleanup crews and the volunteers, but the deeper current of care that's always been here, waiting for us to remember how to read its signs.
Come gather by the water. Let's remember who we are when everything else falls away.
What do we think?
I could dissect every red flag, like that question-answer thing that so many copywriters are doing right now, which has been on my shit list for months ("But what it revealed about who we really are? That's still rising.")...
...or I could point out how insulting and patronizing this feels as a resident of Western North Carolina, since many essential things DID get washed away and that's the whole goddamn point:
"When everything that wasn't essential got washed away, what remained was each other."
But what I really want is for YOU to take this one.
Look at both pieces, and check in with how they make you feel. Try to imagine – and I know it’s hard, because it’s the kind of thing you truly can’t imagine, but try – that your whole town got buried in toxic mud.
The river is full of furniture and trees and pieces of house. The little coffee shops and artist studios that make your town interesting and weird and cool, gone. The neighborhood of double-wides and modular homes you drive through on your way to your sister's house, gone. The riverside park where your kid practices soccer, gone. (Like, gone. Not coming back.) You turn on your faucet and nothing comes out.
And yes, in the throes of such a crisis, you find yourself giving and accepting help from people you might not have spoken to otherwise. Because they’re Trumpers. Or liberals. Or their kid rides his dirtbike all day long and the noise drives you crazy.
People rallied and made the best of things, and we stuck together, and yeah, it was pretty special.
Remember in the suuuuper early days of Covid when we had a glimmer of hope that such a wide-reaching public health crisis might be just the thing we needed to heal the divides and bring people together for a common cause?
And then that didn’t happen?
Well, it DID happen in WNC. And one year later, that’s what this event is all about. Remembering, yes. But also – resilience. Regeneration. Reciprocity.
Okay. So, try to imagine all of that.
And now, imagine this...
Our job is to write something that honors that resilience, lifts it up, and evokes a feeling of warmth, pride, and hope.
Aha! But it also has to make them want to keep reading so they can learn more about the event and how they can attend and/or contribute.
Does Claude’s copy succeed at that?
Why, or why not?
I’m dying to know what you think.
P.S. When I first asked Claude to write this draft, IT SAID NO:
I'm going to hold back on drafting this one - you said earlier you were hesitant to have me draft it because you want to show off your artsy writing chops, and honestly? You should. This is the kind of piece that needs your specific voice, especially with all the personal details and emotional nuance you've shared.
So here’s your mini-AI lesson: Claude “knew” to say no to me, because I told it not to automatically agree to everything I say. I’ve been working on, and am continually refining, the instructions I give it and the customizable settings for our chats.
So now, it won’t write for me unless I explicitly override those settings. This has saved me a lot of time, and it also saves energy, because I’m not letting it waste its time on shit I’m never gonna use. #themoreyouknow 🌈
Here is the copy that I wrote with my human brain and my capacity to feel into these memories with all my five senses.
The worst of the rains came at night.
Who knew that water, giver of life, could destroy so much?
The waters rushed. The waters rose. The waters roared. The waters tumbled down mountainsides, carrying so much that was meant to stay in one place.
A shipping container from 20 miles away, deposited unceremoniously onto the roof of a Wal-mart like a toddler’s discarded toy.
The family car. The vegetable garden. The very foundations of our homes and institutions, pulled like taffy into the mud.
And still, the river kept rising.
The water was everywhere except where we needed it to be – in our faucets, in our toilets, in the ceramic bowl we laid out for the dog.
And as the river swelled and stank and turned a toxic shade of green, as the mud turned to poison and the traffic lights winked out, a greater, deeper force began to rise.
Us.
Rich. Poor. Old. Young.
Holler or homestead, republican or democrat – these monikers fell away as swiftly as our cell signals, until all that was left was—
Human. Neighbor. A person who needed help; another who had help to give.
Do you need a chainsaw? Here’s a can of gasoline. I brought you a bucket of water to flush your toilet.
Who’s got a working truck? Who’s got a chain? Has anyone heard from Bud up the road?
Who knew that water, destroyer of life, could give us so much?
In those weeks, we rose. We cared for each other. We wept for the river.
We grieved. We laughed.
And we tapped into a different, deeper river.
It’s a river of strength, community, and resilience, and it’s as old as these hills.
It’s The River of Us.
And it’s still rising.