Black Mirror Predicted Today

Did you ever watch the Black Mirror episode Fifteen Million Merits?

That was the episode that stood out to me the most (as well as “Nosedive,” the one about a society where everybody can give each other a review).

In Fifteen Million Merits, everyone lives in a screen-covered room, pedaling exercise bikes all day just to earn the currency they need to exist.

When the main character finally snaps - smuggling a shard of glass into a live talent show, holding it to his throat, screaming that the whole system is designed to consume them - the judges don’t punish him. They tell him it was the most real thing they’ve ever seen.

Then they offer him his own weekly show to do it again.

He takes the deal. His rebellion gets a time slot. The rage becomes a product.

That episode aired in 2011. It described 2026 and onward with uncomfortable precision.

I’m not talking about how human rage will become the ultimate currency (although by looking at any TikTok or Instagram feed, you’d get the impression that’s all there’s left).

What I’m talking about is “humans being humans” as the product:

• What we think

• What we feel

• Our experiences

• Our upbringing

• Our unique personality traits

That’s the ultimate currency.

Though the Black Mirror episode conveyed this in an extreme way, I think that’s what’s left for us. It doesn’t have to be ugly; it can be beautiful and useful and yes, even entertaining!

Sure, AI can now practically do everything: your email marketing, your copy, your outbound prospecting, even your videos (using tools like HeyGen that can turn you into an AI clone to make chillingly accurate videos of you (remember ‘the uncanny valley’ anyone?).

It can even run your business for you while you’re drinking a Mai-Tai on the beach using an OpenClaw-powered agentic workforce!

But because it can do everything, humans are rebelling. “AI Slop” has become a commonly used term for a reason.

Now we crave authenticity. In person events. People sharing ideas with one another. Group learning.

Yes, AI can make your life easier, but does it connect with the audience? Can we fool our audience into thinking our content is authentic?

I hypothesize that it can’t.

Which is why I’m doubling down on a marketing approach that relies on you - and your executives, your clients, your partners, your promoters - talking.

What’s more authentic than having a conversation? When you and your companions talk, you’re thinking out loud. You’re sharing thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness that digs deep into your inner being.

All your experiences, what you’ve read, your personality, the moments that shaped you, all that comes out in conversations that last more than 10-minutes.

I love that, and I think there are a lot of people out there like me who love that too.

So, what has this got to do with marketing?

I’m going to contradict myself here and say that AI can amplify your authenticity.

But wait, didn’t I just say that the magic wand of AI - which makes a marketer’s life easier - comes across as inauthentic?

Yes I did, but with a caveat.

I predict that the marketing of today, and over the next few years, will depend on us having genuine conversations, but that AI - with the shocking speed of its algorithmic advances - can honestly replicate the authentic conversations we’re having.

I was calling it “Organic AI Marketing” last year, and today I still think it’s a thing….even more so because AI can now reason, can emulate our turns of phrase, and inject the way we talk in the right places of an otherwise boring piece of AI copy.

The marketing of today is learning from people, talking with people, meeting with people.

Trust comes from recommendations, who has authority and expertise and experience.

Not how much copy you can create because of AI, but how much trust you command because people know you, and you know them.

What does this have to do with marketing?

I’m starting a weekly webinar series on what I’m calling the “Authority Infrastructure.”

It’s what the Strike Marketing Institute has bet on big time: authentic human communication. Events as a way for your community to gather and create content. Real human connections. Extracting real insight from you, the founder, and your zone of genius

The first webinar, “Why Cold Outbound Is a Dead End for Founders Like You,” is next Tuesday, March 31st at 12 PM CST.

I’m going to talk about why cold outbound - email, DMs, cold-calling, which can now be orchestrated entirely by AI - is like pushing a heavier and heavier boulder up a hill.

It’s less effective because you’re fighting the impossible-to-win battle of trust.

Anybody can spin up an outbound campaign.

But what’s replacing it?

I’ll get into that in the webinar….

See you there!