A reflection on storytelling, ethics, and connection in the age of “feed creation”
h/t to Intelligent Jello
Today I’m attending the Consumer Technology Association Foundation October Accessibility Roundtable, joining over 100 leaders in accessibility and technology. It’s the perfect setting to talk about speed, storytelling, and the human values that keep innovation connected to intention.
In my work, I ensure blind people enjoy watching videos, turning accessibility for blind audiences from compliance into strategy, and guiding how the right voice earns trust and impact.
Back to Mike Gioia’s article, many of my brain’s synapses fireworked into more thoughts. There’s something to this scattered media as he calls it: that legacy media (movies, television, and books) tells stories through plot, while the Internet lives through vibes, memes, and feeds.
If that’s true, it’s worth asking:
What happens to intent when everything becomes remixable, and to context when every moment gets detached from a story?
Not a critique, here. I think it’s an invitation. (And also maybe a warning.)
The New Divide Isn't Plot vs. Vibe - It's Intent vs. Autopilot
Plot-based storytelling is deliberate. Someone chose every cut, pause, and inflection to lead you toward a feeling. It’s human attention, organized into meaning.
Feed-based storytelling is immediate. The feeling comes first-meaning might follow later (or not at all).
AI fits right in because it doesn’t need intent to generate affect. It can simulate emotion, approximate rhythm, and still hold your attention.
But that doesn’t mean it understands what that attention is for.
That’s where human intent still matters most, and where creators, voice actors, and accessibility professionals can redefine what “creative” means in this new economy of speed.
(This is the part where we either dig in, or get swept away.)
Sora and the Speed of Story
Take OpenAI’s new Sora app, a video generator that lets you describe a scene and watch it come alive, complete with visuals, dialogue, and music.
At first glance, it’s magic. Anyone can make a video by typing a few words. No crew. No editing suite. No training. You can remix, cameo, and share in minutes.
It’s playful and social, a perfect expression of feed media.
But beneath that speed lies an ethical vacuum.
Who owns the likenesses used in those remixes?
Who’s accountable when a generated scene crosses a boundary or rewrites a face without consent?
And what happens when creativity becomes performance for an algorithm instead of expression for an audience?
Sora is impressive technology-but it’s also a mirror.
It shows us what happens when intent gets automated-and when fun quietly turns into frictionless disconnection.
The Ethical Vacuum
In legacy storytelling (SO HARD TO WRITE “legacy”!!), authorship carries accountability.
If a scene manipulates, exploits, or misrepresents, there’s a person (or a team) to hold responsible.
In feed media, authorship dissolves.
Every remix dilutes ownership until no one’s left to answer for it.
That makes AI an accelerant-not just for creation, but for ethical displacement.
In other words, the faster we go, the easier it becomes to skip the moral questions:
– Whose likeness or voice was used without permission? (more here)
– Who profits when art is trained on uncredited labor?
– Who sets the boundaries for what’s “harmless fun”?
When creative friction disappears, so does the reflection that comes with it.
And reflection is where empathy usually lives.
The Psychological Cost of Infinite Remix
In the Sora article, Mike Gioia mentions: “I’ve never watched myself so much.”
In 48 hours, he’d seen his own face and body more times than in his entire life. At first, it boosted his self-image.
But there’s a subtle danger in that-the difference between recognition and connection.
When every version of ourselves can be remixed, rated, and shared, we start performing our identity for machines.
We train ourselves to feel seen only through simulation.
AI reshapes selfhood.
As someone who works with voice and audio description, I think a lot about witness.
True connection is being understood.
Feed media collapses that distinction until self-expression starts looking more like (urp) self-surveillance.
And if we’re always watching ourselves… who’s left to listen?
The Economic Flattening of Creativity
When “creative friction” disappears, those thoughtful speedbumps that allow for listening, consideration, perspectives, and more, so does the distinction between craft and content.
That sounds democratic-and in some ways, it is.
Anyone can make something. But when “anyone can make something” becomes “no one gets paid for making anything,” the system stops being creative and starts being extractive.
Feed media rewards attention, not artistry.
It optimizes for what’s repeatable. No more risky or vulnerable.
That’s where the economics come in. The scarce resource isn’t talent anymore. It’s trust.
Trust that what you’re watching or hearing was made by someone who cared.
Trust that what moves you was meant to move you, not just generated to keep you scrolling.
The challenge now is making sure the systems that promise democratization don’t end up devaluing the very humans they were meant to empower.
The Cultural Erosion of Shared Experience
Plot-based media gives us collective memory. It’s stories we quote, the arcs that define a generation, the shared silences in a theater when a line lands just right, or the water cooler conversations the next morning that are remembered years later.
Feed media gives us … lets call it “collective momentum,” the trending sound, the viral clip, the laugh that travels faster than language and disappears faster than Fruit Stripe gum.
Both matter. But one without the other leaves us dizzy.
When everything is contextless, we lose the ability to feel together.
The “vibe” might connect us for a second, but without story, it can’t hold us for long.
That’s the paradox: AI accelerates creativity by fragmenting the experience it’s supposed to enhance.
Synthetic Voices and the Disappearing Human Witness
This one’s personal.
Synthetic voices can perform words. but they can’t perform witness.
They can’t (yet) understand the emotional weight behind silence, or how a pause can hold an entire backstory.
They don’t know what it means to serve a listener-especially one who experiences the world through sound.
When synthetic voices replace human ones in audio description or narration, we risk turning connection into convenience.
We gain efficiency, but lose empathy.
Every time we replace lived performance with simulation, we trade intent for “close enough” (in my voice over workouts, that’s called phoning it in).
And that’s not an even exchange.
AI can generate clarity.
Only humans can generate care.
Context Is the Currency of Connection
Context is how we receive meaning.
In accessibility, context is everything: How and why you say what you say.
That’s the throughline between legacy and feed media, between plot and vibe: context is the difference between information and experience.
Context is a human act: deciding what matters, what deserves to be felt, and what should be left unspoken.
Humans provide intent and integrity.
The bridge between human and AI is context, and that’s where the next generation of creators will live.
Designing Intent in an Age of Automatic Context
(So how do we move forward without losing the thread?)
Maybe it’s not “Legacy” vs. “Feed.” Maybe it’s:
– Immersive storytelling for depth and shared experience
– Feed storytelling for speed and shared attention
The opportunity is designing intent inside speed.
That means:
– Using AI to remove tedium, not replace connection
– Treating efficiency as a gift, not a substitute for empathy
– Building tools that amplify human values (not erasing them
This is where creators can lead-not by rejecting new tools, but by defining their purpose.
(That’s the real creative act: deciding why before how fast.)
The Human Check in: Connection
Before I hit publish on articles like these, I pause with seven small questions. They’re how I make sure clarity never comes at the cost of connection.
1.The scarce resource here is time, trust, and energy. Our attention is finite. So attention? I have to treat your time with these blogs as sacred.
2.How do we deliver more value than that cost?
By offering clarity that helps people make better creative and ethical choices, not just consume more. Compound interest.
3.What makes this feel safe to say yes to?
I love approaching all these conversations with curiosity, not condemnation. We’re learning together. This is a process.
4.How can this increase both our payoffs?
Readers gain insight; I gain community. That’s a fair trade. Win / Win / Win is even better than the Win / Win approach.
5.What emotion am I inviting?
“Grounded hope” — the kind that trusts humans to stay human.
6.What action feels natural after this?
For my call to action, I myself reflect. Reimagine. Reconnect. Maybe even reach out.
7.Am I earning trust or claiming it?
Hopefully earning! Through specificity, empathy, and respect.
That’s the micro-game theory of storytelling: building systems of mutual value, not one-way persuasion. (and you’ve made it this far!)
The Human Value Proposition
AI can accelerate creation, but humans can ensure that creation still serves connection.
That’s the heart of it.
This isn’t nostalgia for slower times, nor is it fear of new tools. It’s remembering that intent is what turns information into meaning. The A.D. Playback Lounge community is based on this core concept, through practicing audio description performance.
Plot-based media will evolve. Feed-based media will keep accelerating.
The artists and organizations that thrive will be those who can balance both by joining the speed of innovation while designing for belonging.
Because in the end, connection isn’t a byproduct of story.
It’s the point of it.
Call to Action
If you’re a creator navigating this shift by balancing legacy craft with future tools? I’d love to keep exploring what “human-centered” really means in an AI world.
– My book’s core message dives into this blog’s idea and more: RoySamuelson.com/book
– The ADNA Presents Podcast spotlights the people who work on audio description, the people who experience it, and the people who impact it. We’ve got over 200 episodes and growing.
– Subscribe below (and at the bottom of every page of RoySamuelson.com) to “Stay in The Loop” for more human-centered clarity.