People crave art.

In it there’s a human connection that is borne out of the struggles, the choices, the late nights, the odd connections, the people that helped—the story behind the piece. These layered meanings allow for audience to enjoy the piece in a variety contexts, be they old or young, tired or angry, they can see into the work and discover more.

Even when the end result is bad, a trashy novel, a B movie, a sophomore album, we can still gather together and shoot the shit—did you hear about x, did you know y, that’s a nod to z…. There’s a word for that cultural depth, that meta-story that sits below the surface of the piece of art you’re listening to, or reading, or watching, or tasting. The word: provenance.

One thing that generated “AI” slop lacks is provenance. There is no history behind it. It’s a shallow immediate response based on weights and maths—all machine, no meat. And the care the “writer” took in crafting “their” story is just as deep and just as meaningful and just as worthy of discussion.

What is lost is the ability to read into a piece, to wonder at the choices made, at the mental state of the writer, at the era and its political leanings and economic outcomes, it’s in finding out that your favorite book is in fact one volley in a feud against another author; should you read that now?

The writer wrote a word, but in so writing that word a choice was made, and that choice was informed by the life lived by the writer. Like a wine, you’re not paying for spoiled grape juice, you’re paying for where, when, how the grape was grown, fermented, bottled, you’re paying for the story, for the provenance of the human endeavor behind the Cabernet. Drink up you filthy animal.