Aug 9, 2026
I DON'T LIKE IT WHEN BRANDS USE AI! :(
A follower's comment on a client's new AI-generated campaign got me thinking about how we've reacted every time an industry embraced a new tool, and why the story rarely ends where the critics expect.
Perspective
Dialogue
Industry shift
"THE COMMENT"
A follower said what a lot of people are thinking.
I saw a comment on a brand's Instagram post the other day that stopped me mid-scroll. The brand had just posted a polished, cinematic, unmistakably AI-generated commercial, the kind of frame we spend hours crafting here at Flo-State Studio (okay it was ours!) LOL . And a follower, someone who'd clearly been around for a while, wrote something like: "Please don't tell me this is AI" Not super hateful, but a little protective of the brand they are used to see posting imperfect, warm and unmistakably human content (which is actually still 90% of what they do post - but I digress). It's the kind of comment that's easy to dismiss and much harder to actually sit with. Because they weren't wrong to feel something. They were just measuring the new thing against the wrong yardstick.
History
Every creative shift has sounded like a betrayal at first and ended in more work, not less.
This exact feeling has a long history, and it's never really been about the tool. In 1966, a fan at a Bob Dylan concert in Manchester screamed "Judas!" when Dylan plugged in an electric guitar (dramatic much!), to that crowd, going electric wasn't evolution, it was abandonment of everything folk music stood for. What followed wasn't the death of songwriting, it was an explosion of it: session musicians, amp builders, sound engineers and entire genres that only existed because someone was willing to be called a traitor first. Drum machines and MIDI got the same treatment a decade later from musicians who insisted a "real" song needed a live drummer in the room, right up until synthesizers and samplers became the backbone of hip-hop, house and pop, and "producer" became one of the most in-demand jobs in music, not one of the most threatened. Painters said photography wasn't real art in the 1800s, dismissing it as a mechanical trick, and then photography went on to create photojournalism, commercial studios, darkrooms full of technicians, entire careers that painting alone never could have supported. Illustrators said something close to it again in the 90s and 2000s when Photoshop and digital tablets started replacing paper and paint, and what followed was web design, motion graphics, game art and UI design, fields that simply did not exist before the "fake" tool showed up. Every time, the complaint felt urgent and specific in the moment. Every time, in hindsight, it reads as the sound of an industry getting bigger, not smaller.
Forward
This conversation is just getting started.
If you're a brand reading this and feeling gun-shy after a comment like that one, here's the honest take: don't stop experimenting, and don't take it personally. A comment saying "I miss the old you" is a sign someone cared enough to notice, which is a far better problem to have than silence. Use it as calibration, not a verdict. AI in your content isn't a replacement for the story that got people to follow you in the first place, it's a way to move faster, try more ideas, and free up budget and time to invest even more in the human parts of the brand, the founder on camera, the process shots, the behind-the-scenes moments that AI still can't fake. The brands people stay loyal to long-term aren't the ones who never change. They're the ones still reading the comments, still explaining themselves, still willing to say "here's why we're trying this" instead of going quiet. Shout out to the brave ones!
If you're a photographer, editor, or director feeling genuinely uneasy about brands adopting AI, that fear deserves to be taken seriously, not talked out of. Real income and real careers are on the line, and pretending otherwise helps no one. But it's worth being deliberate about where that frustration lands. Publicly turning on the very brands who booked your shoots, paid your invoices and built your portfolio over the last few years won't slow the shift down, it just risks burning a relationship that funded your career to this point, over a decision that, in most cases, wasn't personal. Every one of the shifts above had a version of you in it: the session drummer who thought the drum machine was the end, the darkroom technician who thought digital cameras were a fad, the traditional illustrator who swore off tablets. The ones who came out ahead weren't the ones who fought hardest against the tool, they were the ones who got close enough to it to shape how it got used, and became the people brands needed to make it look good, feel right, and stay human. That seat is still open. It just requires showing up to the new table instead of standing outside it.
The truth is, we're all figuring this out at the same time, brands, creators, agencies and audiences. No one has a finished playbook for what AI content should look and feel like, and anyone who tells you they do is selling something. What we do know is that the best outcomes have always come from the industries, artists, and companies that kept the conversation open instead of drawing battle lines. The electric guitar didn't kill folk music; it gave us rock. Photoshop didn't kill illustration; it gave us an entirely new design industry. And AI won't kill brand storytelling, it'll just make the ones who use it with intention stand out even more from the ones who use it as a shortcut. So if you're a brand experimenting, keep going. If you're a creator watching it happen, get involved. And if you're a follower who left that comment, thank you. That honesty is exactly what keeps this whole thing honest. Drop your take in the comments or send us a DM. We want to hear how you're thinking about this, whether you're building with AI, pushing back against it, or somewhere in between.
The conversation is better with you in it.
by Rash Ferguson
FAQ
01
What does working with Flo-State actually look like?
02
How does pricing work?
03
How fast can you turn around content?
04
What kinds of brands do you work with?
05
What makes Flo-State different from a traditional agency?
06
Can you match our existing brand aesthetic?
07
Do you work with brands outside South Africa?
08
What do I need to get started?
Aug 9, 2026
I DON'T LIKE IT WHEN BRANDS USE AI! :(
A follower's comment on a client's new AI-generated campaign got me thinking about how we've reacted every time an industry embraced a new tool, and why the story rarely ends where the critics expect.
Perspective
Dialogue
Industry shift
"THE COMMENT"
A follower said what a lot of people are thinking.
I saw a comment on a brand's Instagram post the other day that stopped me mid-scroll. The brand had just posted a polished, cinematic, unmistakably AI-generated commercial, the kind of frame we spend hours crafting here at Flo-State Studio (okay it was ours!) LOL . And a follower, someone who'd clearly been around for a while, wrote something like: "Please don't tell me this is AI" Not super hateful, but a little protective of the brand they are used to see posting imperfect, warm and unmistakably human content (which is actually still 90% of what they do post - but I digress). It's the kind of comment that's easy to dismiss and much harder to actually sit with. Because they weren't wrong to feel something. They were just measuring the new thing against the wrong yardstick.
History
Every creative shift has sounded like a betrayal at first and ended in more work, not less.
This exact feeling has a long history, and it's never really been about the tool. In 1966, a fan at a Bob Dylan concert in Manchester screamed "Judas!" when Dylan plugged in an electric guitar (dramatic much!), to that crowd, going electric wasn't evolution, it was abandonment of everything folk music stood for. What followed wasn't the death of songwriting, it was an explosion of it: session musicians, amp builders, sound engineers and entire genres that only existed because someone was willing to be called a traitor first. Drum machines and MIDI got the same treatment a decade later from musicians who insisted a "real" song needed a live drummer in the room, right up until synthesizers and samplers became the backbone of hip-hop, house and pop, and "producer" became one of the most in-demand jobs in music, not one of the most threatened. Painters said photography wasn't real art in the 1800s, dismissing it as a mechanical trick, and then photography went on to create photojournalism, commercial studios, darkrooms full of technicians, entire careers that painting alone never could have supported. Illustrators said something close to it again in the 90s and 2000s when Photoshop and digital tablets started replacing paper and paint, and what followed was web design, motion graphics, game art and UI design, fields that simply did not exist before the "fake" tool showed up. Every time, the complaint felt urgent and specific in the moment. Every time, in hindsight, it reads as the sound of an industry getting bigger, not smaller.
Forward
This conversation is just getting started.
If you're a brand reading this and feeling gun-shy after a comment like that one, here's the honest take: don't stop experimenting, and don't take it personally. A comment saying "I miss the old you" is a sign someone cared enough to notice, which is a far better problem to have than silence. Use it as calibration, not a verdict. AI in your content isn't a replacement for the story that got people to follow you in the first place, it's a way to move faster, try more ideas, and free up budget and time to invest even more in the human parts of the brand, the founder on camera, the process shots, the behind-the-scenes moments that AI still can't fake. The brands people stay loyal to long-term aren't the ones who never change. They're the ones still reading the comments, still explaining themselves, still willing to say "here's why we're trying this" instead of going quiet. Shout out to the brave ones!
If you're a photographer, editor, or director feeling genuinely uneasy about brands adopting AI, that fear deserves to be taken seriously, not talked out of. Real income and real careers are on the line, and pretending otherwise helps no one. But it's worth being deliberate about where that frustration lands. Publicly turning on the very brands who booked your shoots, paid your invoices and built your portfolio over the last few years won't slow the shift down, it just risks burning a relationship that funded your career to this point, over a decision that, in most cases, wasn't personal. Every one of the shifts above had a version of you in it: the session drummer who thought the drum machine was the end, the darkroom technician who thought digital cameras were a fad, the traditional illustrator who swore off tablets. The ones who came out ahead weren't the ones who fought hardest against the tool, they were the ones who got close enough to it to shape how it got used, and became the people brands needed to make it look good, feel right, and stay human. That seat is still open. It just requires showing up to the new table instead of standing outside it.
The truth is, we're all figuring this out at the same time, brands, creators, agencies and audiences. No one has a finished playbook for what AI content should look and feel like, and anyone who tells you they do is selling something. What we do know is that the best outcomes have always come from the industries, artists, and companies that kept the conversation open instead of drawing battle lines. The electric guitar didn't kill folk music; it gave us rock. Photoshop didn't kill illustration; it gave us an entirely new design industry. And AI won't kill brand storytelling, it'll just make the ones who use it with intention stand out even more from the ones who use it as a shortcut. So if you're a brand experimenting, keep going. If you're a creator watching it happen, get involved. And if you're a follower who left that comment, thank you. That honesty is exactly what keeps this whole thing honest. Drop your take in the comments or send us a DM. We want to hear how you're thinking about this, whether you're building with AI, pushing back against it, or somewhere in between.
The conversation is better with you in it.
by Rash Ferguson
FAQ
01
What does working with Flo-State actually look like?
02
How does pricing work?
03
How fast can you turn around content?
04
What kinds of brands do you work with?
05
What makes Flo-State different from a traditional agency?
06
Can you match our existing brand aesthetic?
07
Do you work with brands outside South Africa?
08
What do I need to get started?
Aug 9, 2026
I DON'T LIKE IT WHEN BRANDS USE AI! :(
A follower's comment on a client's new AI-generated campaign got me thinking about how we've reacted every time an industry embraced a new tool, and why the story rarely ends where the critics expect.
Perspective
Dialogue
Industry shift
"THE COMMENT"
A follower said what a lot of people are thinking.
I saw a comment on a brand's Instagram post the other day that stopped me mid-scroll. The brand had just posted a polished, cinematic, unmistakably AI-generated commercial, the kind of frame we spend hours crafting here at Flo-State Studio (okay it was ours!) LOL . And a follower, someone who'd clearly been around for a while, wrote something like: "Please don't tell me this is AI" Not super hateful, but a little protective of the brand they are used to see posting imperfect, warm and unmistakably human content (which is actually still 90% of what they do post - but I digress). It's the kind of comment that's easy to dismiss and much harder to actually sit with. Because they weren't wrong to feel something. They were just measuring the new thing against the wrong yardstick.
History
Every creative shift has sounded like a betrayal at first and ended in more work, not less.
This exact feeling has a long history, and it's never really been about the tool. In 1966, a fan at a Bob Dylan concert in Manchester screamed "Judas!" when Dylan plugged in an electric guitar (dramatic much!), to that crowd, going electric wasn't evolution, it was abandonment of everything folk music stood for. What followed wasn't the death of songwriting, it was an explosion of it: session musicians, amp builders, sound engineers and entire genres that only existed because someone was willing to be called a traitor first. Drum machines and MIDI got the same treatment a decade later from musicians who insisted a "real" song needed a live drummer in the room, right up until synthesizers and samplers became the backbone of hip-hop, house and pop, and "producer" became one of the most in-demand jobs in music, not one of the most threatened. Painters said photography wasn't real art in the 1800s, dismissing it as a mechanical trick, and then photography went on to create photojournalism, commercial studios, darkrooms full of technicians, entire careers that painting alone never could have supported. Illustrators said something close to it again in the 90s and 2000s when Photoshop and digital tablets started replacing paper and paint, and what followed was web design, motion graphics, game art and UI design, fields that simply did not exist before the "fake" tool showed up. Every time, the complaint felt urgent and specific in the moment. Every time, in hindsight, it reads as the sound of an industry getting bigger, not smaller.
Forward
This conversation is just getting started.
If you're a brand reading this and feeling gun-shy after a comment like that one, here's the honest take: don't stop experimenting, and don't take it personally. A comment saying "I miss the old you" is a sign someone cared enough to notice, which is a far better problem to have than silence. Use it as calibration, not a verdict. AI in your content isn't a replacement for the story that got people to follow you in the first place, it's a way to move faster, try more ideas, and free up budget and time to invest even more in the human parts of the brand, the founder on camera, the process shots, the behind-the-scenes moments that AI still can't fake. The brands people stay loyal to long-term aren't the ones who never change. They're the ones still reading the comments, still explaining themselves, still willing to say "here's why we're trying this" instead of going quiet. Shout out to the brave ones!
If you're a photographer, editor, or director feeling genuinely uneasy about brands adopting AI, that fear deserves to be taken seriously, not talked out of. Real income and real careers are on the line, and pretending otherwise helps no one. But it's worth being deliberate about where that frustration lands. Publicly turning on the very brands who booked your shoots, paid your invoices and built your portfolio over the last few years won't slow the shift down, it just risks burning a relationship that funded your career to this point, over a decision that, in most cases, wasn't personal. Every one of the shifts above had a version of you in it: the session drummer who thought the drum machine was the end, the darkroom technician who thought digital cameras were a fad, the traditional illustrator who swore off tablets. The ones who came out ahead weren't the ones who fought hardest against the tool, they were the ones who got close enough to it to shape how it got used, and became the people brands needed to make it look good, feel right, and stay human. That seat is still open. It just requires showing up to the new table instead of standing outside it.
The truth is, we're all figuring this out at the same time, brands, creators, agencies and audiences. No one has a finished playbook for what AI content should look and feel like, and anyone who tells you they do is selling something. What we do know is that the best outcomes have always come from the industries, artists, and companies that kept the conversation open instead of drawing battle lines. The electric guitar didn't kill folk music; it gave us rock. Photoshop didn't kill illustration; it gave us an entirely new design industry. And AI won't kill brand storytelling, it'll just make the ones who use it with intention stand out even more from the ones who use it as a shortcut. So if you're a brand experimenting, keep going. If you're a creator watching it happen, get involved. And if you're a follower who left that comment, thank you. That honesty is exactly what keeps this whole thing honest. Drop your take in the comments or send us a DM. We want to hear how you're thinking about this, whether you're building with AI, pushing back against it, or somewhere in between.
The conversation is better with you in it.
by Rash Ferguson
FAQ
What does working with Flo-State actually look like?
How does pricing work?
How fast can you turn around content?
What kinds of brands do you work with?
What makes Flo-State different from a traditional agency?
Can you match our existing brand aesthetic?
Do you work with brands outside South Africa?
What do I need to get started?