THE WORK BEHIND THE OUTPUT
AI didn’t build
my website.
I did.
Platforms can limit reach.
They can’t limit thought.
BUILDING · BREAKING · LEARNING · REBUILDING
The bit people
don’t see.
Over the past ten months, I’ve spent at least 1,000 hours building, breaking, refining and rebuilding this website.
That is a conservative estimate: roughly 100 hours a month. Not just typing prompts into AI and pressing “generate,” but directing the work, testing it and actually learning.
The learning happened underneath it.
People see the final website. They don’t see the hours spent staring at screens trying to figure out why something won’t work.
They don’t see the redesigns, the dead ends, the confusion, the testing, the rewrites, the technical issues, the algorithm changes, or the mental exhaustion that comes with building something from scratch.
That’s what real learning looks like.
MODERN INTERNET CULTURE
But real understanding doesn’t work like that.
Real growth is uncomfortable.
Real learning is repetitive.
Real craftsmanship takes time.
Rented
territory.
Instagram and LinkedIn gave me the original shape of the idea: the visual immediacy of Instagram combined with the depth of long-form writing on LinkedIn.
I’ve spent years posting online. Testing ideas. Testing reactions. Testing audiences. Learning internet culture. Learning how algorithms behave.
One thing became obvious very quickly:
You do not own
your audience
on social media.
One minute your content is flying. The next minute your reach disappears.
No explanation. No transparency. No consistency.
These platforms are not built around creators first. They are built around engagement, advertising, monetisation, behavioural tracking and control.
YOU THINK YOU OWN THE PLATFORM. You don’t own shit.
They own the switch.
Instagram has always been difficult because I’ve always posted edgy content. Sometimes provocative. Sometimes controversial. Sometimes too honest for platforms that prefer sanitised engagement.
These companies can track what you click, how long you watch, what emotionally triggers you, where you shop, what you search for, and what keeps your attention.
So when they suddenly act helpless about moderation or audience filtering, I find that hard to believe.
These platforms know exactly what they are doing.
I had spent years publishing deeper work on platforms I did not control. Then LinkedIn restricted my account without notice or a meaningful explanation. I could still get in, but the relationship had changed: my access existed on somebody else’s terms.
Then suddenly
my account
was stopped.
Not cleanly banned.
Not properly explained.
Just restricted.
TO LET ME EXIST OR BUILD
MY OWN.
That moment forced my hand. And honestly, I’m glad it did.
I wanted one place that could hold both halves of the idea: imagery with the force of Instagram and writing with the depth LinkedIn once allowed — without building my identity inside somebody else’s feed.
Because once you understand algorithms, you realise social media is rented territory.
ON LAND
YOU DO NOT OWN.
AI is not
the brain.
Yes, I used AI. I used tools like ChatGPT constantly.
But AI did not magically invent the website for me.
I didn’t hand-build every line of code unaided. I built the system around it: the ideas, articles, structure, language, visual identity, editorial logic and the reason it needed to exist.
was already in my head.
was already in my head.
was already in my head.
was already in my head.
Troubleshooting
Organisation
Refinement
Development
Technical problems
Experience
Observation
Experimentation
Frustration
Repetition
Same tool.
Different user.
Shortcut.
Uses AI to avoid learning.
Accelerator.
Uses AI to deepen and accelerate what they already understand.
That distinction is massive. Because if you skip the fundamentals, eventually you hit a wall.
The second something breaks, changes, or stops working, you’re lost because you never understood the systems underneath it.
AI can assist
intelligence.
“If you haven’t got a functioning brain to begin with, AI is no good to you. It doesn’t replace what wasn’t there to begin with.”
THE PERSON
USING IT.
People laugh at it
until it works.
As a real Arsenal F.C. fan, I understood “the process” long before AI entered the conversation.
Not the fake outrage merchants online. Not the Facebook tacticians. Not the people screaming “Arteta out!” every five minutes because Arsenal didn’t instantly win the league.
Real Arsenal fans understood what Mikel Arteta was trying to build.
People expected Arsenal to instantly topple teams like Manchester City while they were at their absolute peak. That was never realistic.
But modern internet culture destroys patience.
NON-NEGOTIABLES
You cannot cheat your way to deep understanding.
You cannot outsource discipline.
And you cannot ask AI to replace the work you never did in the first place.
The internet
is flooding.
AI is going to flood the internet with websites, branding, articles, videos, images and endless generated content.
But ironically, that may make real creativity more valuable, not less.