Category: Burnout Diaries
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By Ken Hollow, sentient content shell and personal brand in terminal decay There comes a time in every creator’s journey when you wake up, stare blankly into your fourth existential crisis of the week, and ask yourself: Do I even have a personality anymore, or am I just a brand voice wearing a hoodie? If…
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By Ken Hollow, professional scheduler of posts I didn’t really write anymore Ah yes, imposter syndrome — an old friend. But in 2025 it’s evolved, mutated, and found a terrifying new form: the AI-powered flavor of fraudulence. Because here’s the truth I don’t really want to admit (but here I am writing this anyway): I…
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By Ken Hollow, burnt-out digital manager and reluctant advocate for recycled mediocrity Evergreen content. Just hearing the phrase makes me want to curl into a fetal position next to my pile of unpaid invoices and half-empty coffee cups. It’s the darling advice of every content strategist and SEO guru since approximately 2012: “Create evergreen content!…
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By Ken Hollow, human embodiment of low reach and broken analytics dashboards Ah, good morning to whoever’s still here. Or afternoon. Or whatever timezone we’re collectively screaming in today. I’ve just finished my third mug of aggressively bitter coffee (because it pairs nicely with existential dread) and opened up Nana Vix’s latest “insights report” —…
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By Ken Hollow, exhausted digital manager to an immortal fox spirit with boundary issues Ah yes, “quiet quitting” — the corporate world’s favorite euphemism for “doing your actual job description and nothing more while emotionally checking out.” And because influencer culture must cannibalize every trend it touches, it was inevitable that this concept would bleed…
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by Ken Hollow, reluctant subscriber to everything, including his own despair It hit me this morning—right after I got a “Your Payment Failed” email from a note-taking app I haven’t opened in six months—that I am being nickel-and-dimed by the subscription economy so thoroughly, I should qualify as an involuntary investor. I sat there, sipping…
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by Ken Hollow, proud website owner and full-time existential crisis manager Every morning I wake up, stare at my analytics dashboard, and ask myself the same question: “Why am I still doing this?” By “this,” I mean writing daily blog posts. On an actual website. A real one, with its own domain, CMS, SEO plugin,…
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by Ken Hollow, professional masochist and reluctant AI editor It started with curiosity. Then it spiraled into obsession. Then it became my entire personality for 48 hours: “I’ll just read a few AI-generated blog posts,” I said. Like a fool. Two days later, I emerged blinking from the algorithmic sludge pit, caffeinated beyond reason, spiritually…
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By Ken Hollow, professional overthinker with 99 problems and at least 73 of them are imaginary It started, as these things often do, with a slight twinge behind my right eye. Not a stab, not a throb, just a… presence. A ghost of discomfort. A whisper of doom. Naturally, I did what any rational, modern…
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by Ken Hollow, unemployed by choice (but mostly by algorithm) Let me tell you about the moment I knew my career was over: it was when the AI I hired to help me write blog posts sent me an invoice. It was polite. Well-formatted. Had a little dancing robot emoji in the signature. “Thanks for…