“I looked up ‘personal brand’ online and saw a book that looks like yours but isn’t… I was like WTF is this.”
That was the text I got from my friend Lauren Davis last week.
The book in question was called Personal Branding (real winner of a title, haha) by Dave Stone. Dave’s book really does bear a striking resemblance to mine: orange, similar font and topic, and even the little black sticker.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I beg to differ.
Good imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This makes the knockoffs on Canal Street look like couture.
Lauren tried to find out who Dave Stone was, but to no avail. When I told my book designer Jason Clement that someone seemed to have copied his handiwork, Jason dug and found three more books, presumably by the same mysterious Mr. Stone… this time under the name David Stone.
Those world class titles include (I’m serious):
- Have You Ever Been So Tired You Went Into a Bathroom in a Convention Center and Were Surprised There Weren’t Any Urinals?
- I Lost My Hair. People Say That All the Time. But I Really Did.
- Sam Ketchum and the Strange Case of the Purloined Underwear
You might think this really ticked me off. It didn’t. People rip off my stuff all the time. It comes with the territory.
Sure, Dave Stone is annoying. But what hits me is more a sense of fatigue. “All that hard work, ripped off and resold online. This crap will never end.”
I’m calling this visibility fatigue.
Visibility fatigue is the exhaustion of trying to be everywhere, all the time, all at once. Every platform, every format, every day… now compounded by AI bots that don’t get tired. The treadmill keeps speeding up, and now there’s a robot running next to you.
Of course you should protect your stuff, but you’ll never pull every weed. Whether I’m advising New York Times bestsellers or founders still building their IP, they all hear the same thing from me: grow deeper roots and stop freaking out about AI. Channel that energy into creating better, more substantive work.
Dave Stone Is a Symptom
I’m pretty fed up with AI. Yes, it can do amazing things. AI also feels like Microsoft Clippy on steroids.
I didn’t own a computer in college, so I’d write my papers in the computer lab. One time I got kicked out because I said, “Motherfucking paper clip, get the fuck off my screen!” a little bit too loud. I was wearing headphones and didn’t realize I was practically shouting.
I feel the same way about AI. Every freakin’ app, search, and email: “It looks like you’re trying to think. Would you like me to do that for you?”
Anyone with half a brain can tell you probably shouldn’t buy from Dave Stone. But AI will get better. Soon, even those of us with full brains won’t be able to tell the difference between twelve years of work and a 12-minute output. When the market can’t tell, the incentive to do the twelve years goes away.
Even the platforms can’t keep up. YouTube and Amazon have billions of dollars and entire teams dedicated to fraud detection. They have to: if the user experience tanks, users leave.
In 2023, Amazon instituted a three e-book upload per day cap because so much slop was flooding their catalog after ChatGPT was released. In 2025, YouTube started demonetizing videos and entire channels pushing out AI slop.
They’re still losing ground. There is always another Dave Stone, and his cost of production is falling every quarter.
If they can’t police their own platforms, you and I have zero shot at winning on platform scale.
I know what the AI bros are telling you right now. “Designers are cooked! The coaching industry is dead! Writers are obsolete! Have you heard of Claude Co-Work??!”
(This Reel by May Castillo captures this perfectly.)
Yes, I use AI every week. The question was never whether to use it. The question is whose voice stays at the center of the work.
The Volume Game is Unwinnable
For most, trying to keep up is a losing strategy. We will not out-publish a bot. We will not out-frequency someone who has nothing to say but infinite time to say it.
I’m tired, too. But fatigue, properly listened to, makes you focus on what matters most.
The scarce thing today is not visibility, it’s substance. Taking a page out of my college days, I’ve decided to major on the majors, and minor on the minors.
For this season, I’m choosing to be a writer first. I’ve upped the ante by writing this issue with pencil and paper. It took hours. The issue also turned out infinitely better.
Sure, I can still speak or record videos. But I’m letting those become secondary while this newsletter becomes the best it can be.
I’ve also decided to spend an extra twenty minutes reposting my writing onto Substack, Medium, and LinkedIn Pulse. Those aren’t platforms I’m normally on, but it’s better than torching another two hours editing a Reel hoping it goes viral. I’ll also feel better knowing I at least repurposed it.
Play to your strengths, then make them stronger.
If you’re a Shohei Ohtani-type multi-creative unicorn, the fix probably isn’t doing everything more. Try picking one lane and sticking with it for a season. Ohtani is an all-time great five-tool player, but the Dodgers still need him to play a specific role in the lineup.
This week, try to notice:
Where does your voice actually come alive? Where do you sound most like yourself? Where is the place, that after you post or publish, you feel, “Yeah, I am pretty badass.”
Stay there longer than feels comfortable.
Visibility fatigue is real. It goes away the way physical fatigue does: you stop. You rest. You pick fewer things and you do them better. The treadmill was never going to take you anywhere good anyways.
Get off. Pick the one modality where you sound like yourself. Stay there.
***
This is part 2 of 3 on the forces reshaping what it means to build trust, credibility, and a body of work in this era. Read part 1, The Tabloidization of the Internet, here.
Part 3 of 3 lands next Tuesday: what I’m calling “The Great Letting Go.” The version of you that won the old game might not be the one who carries you through this next one. There’s grief in that. There’s also freedom.
Til next time,
Mike Kim
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
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