Spite

Hi there! It's day one of Thingadailies, the blogging challenge to create one new thing every day and write a post about it. Now's a great time for you to join in!

I run on spite

I'll try not to rant, but I have a hate/hate relationship with generative AI. It destroys the planet while making you stupider, what's not to hate?

So a few weeks ago, someone created a mini-movie for a friend's book with genAI. And I know his heart was in the right place, so I'm trying not to judge him for this. But... 

It made me realize (again) the difference between shoving a bunch of poorly scripted, weirdly angled, and horribly edited scenes together versus doing the work to create something that's watchable. Seriously, I made it through the first five minutes of this "movie" only because I was trying to figure out why I was reacting so poorly to it.

So my challenge for the day was to create a trailer for the same book that used no genAI and was better. Because I run on spite.

Sure, no problem, I can do that...

Did I achieve my goal? I think so, if only because mine is about 30 seconds long. Is it great? Meh. It has problems. Finding the right images on DepositPhotos was a challenge. I'm unfamiliar with iMovie, so my titles look pretty amateurish, and the text itself could have used another pass.

(Also, wtf iMovie, why are you popping up an Import window every two seconds when my monitor is connected? I had to disconnect my monitor and edit on my laptop screen. So irritating. I'll be looking for different editing software if I can't find a fix for that.)

(Music by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM)

(Images licensed from DepositPhotos)

Do you need to be a speed reader to catch the captions? Maaaybe. Or maybe it was intentional to make you watch it multiple times so I can get the view count into double digits. We'll never know.

Anyhow, welcome to Thingadailies 2026.