Or: Why I’ve Officially Declared Fuck It Wednesday.
I have a confession to make.
I’ve created a monster.
His name is George. He’s an AI-generated character who offers his unsolicited opinions on celebrities, popular culture, and pretty much anything else I can think of.
Recently, someone asked George what he thought of Noel Gallagher.
“Arsehole,” he replied.
Sixteen thousand four hundred people watched him say it.
16,400.
Meanwhile, I’ve spent years writing, recording, arranging, producing and occasionally agonising over music. Actual music. With melodies, harmonies, lyrics, instruments and all the other inconvenient things that go into making a song.
One of those songs is called Plastic Spoons.
It’s playing in the background of George’s videos.
And apparently, not one of those 16,400 people thought, “Hang on, what’s that song?”
Not one.
Well, perhaps somebody did. I can’t actually prove they didn’t. But judging by my Spotify statistics, they certainly didn’t rush over to listen.
The remarkable success of absolutely nothing
Today I opened Spotify for Artists.
Eleven listeners.
Eighteen streams.
Thirty-four followers.
That’s the last seven days.
Seventeen of those streams were for Plastic Spoons.
And just when I thought the numbers couldn’t get any more depressing, Spotify informed me that minus one person was listening to my music right now.
Minus one.
I’ve achieved something I didn’t think was mathematically possible.
I’m not merely failing to attract listeners. I’m apparently repelling them so effectively that Spotify has started subtracting people who don’t exist.
At this rate, by Christmas I’ll owe Spotify an audience.
There was, admittedly, a little spike in my statistics around the 10th of October.
A sudden burst of activity.
A veritable explosion.
Approximately five additional people.
I briefly considered contacting my accountant to discuss the tax implications.
The man who doesn’t exist is doing rather well
Here’s the thing about George.
He isn’t real.
He doesn’t write his own material. He doesn’t sing. He doesn’t play an instrument. He doesn’t spend hours wondering whether the second chorus needs another harmony or whether the guitar should come in two bars earlier.
He doesn’t even know who Noel Gallagher is.
I provide the questions. I create the videos. I give him his opinions.
And people watch.
Thousands of them.
I’ve had videos that have done reasonably well across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Some have attracted genuine engagement. People laugh, comment, argue and occasionally come back for more.
George has an audience.
I have a recording studio.
And a Spotify account that appears to have developed a negative-number problem.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
I’ve spent decades developing software, and now I’ve managed to develop a fictional character who is better at attracting attention than the real person behind him.
Perhaps I should ask George what he thinks of Lee Painter.
On second thoughts, I probably wouldn’t like the answer.
Welcome to the broken internet
There’s a theory floating around that the internet is broken.
I don’t mean technically broken. The servers work. The videos load. The advertisements arrive with almost supernatural precision.
I mean broken in the sense that the relationship between creating something and getting it seen has become completely absurd.
You can spend months creating a piece of music, carefully refining every detail, and release it into a world that barely notices.
Or you can create a six-second video of a fictional bloke calling a famous musician an arsehole and reach 16,400 people.
I’m not complaining about those 16,400 views.
Actually, I am.
But not because people watched George.
I’m complaining because we’ve built an extraordinary global communications network that can put almost anything in front of almost anyone, and somehow we’ve ended up using it to consume an endless procession of tiny, disposable moments.
Watch.
Laugh.
Swipe.
Forget.
Repeat.
And before somebody points out that I created the George videos precisely to exploit that behaviour, yes, I know.
That’s what makes the whole thing so bloody ridiculous.
I’m participating in the very system I’m complaining about.
I even put my own music in the videos, hoping that somebody might notice.
Apparently, the arsehole was more interesting than the soundtrack.
The attention economy has a peculiar sense of humour
I’m old enough to remember when discovering music required a little effort.
You heard something on the radio. You asked a friend what it was. You went into a record shop. You bought the record.
Sometimes you bought an entire album because you’d heard one song.
And sometimes that album introduced you to something completely unexpected.
Now we have virtually every recording ever made available in our pockets.
An unimaginable library of human creativity.
And what are we doing?
Watching George call Noel Gallagher an arsehole.
To be fair, Noel might find that quite entertaining himself.
But it does make me wonder whether having unlimited access to everything has made us less inclined to explore anything.
Music has become something that happens while we’re doing something else.
The soundtrack to a video.
The background to a workout.
Something playing while we’re cooking dinner.
And I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with that. Music has always accompanied everyday life.
But there’s a difference between hearing music and listening to it.
And right now, I’m struggling to persuade people to do the latter.
Of course, I could optimise my funnel
There’s always somebody ready to explain what I’m doing wrong.
I need a stronger hook.
A better call to action.
More consistent posting.
Better audience targeting.
A content strategy.
A conversion funnel.
Perhaps I should test different thumbnail colours.
Maybe the problem is that George hasn’t looked directly into the camera within the first 0.7 seconds.
Or perhaps I need to publish three videos a day, seven days a week, while simultaneously maintaining an Instagram presence, building an email list, cultivating a community, engaging with comments and persuading the algorithm that I’m worthy of existence.
All while finding the time to actually write another fucking song.
I’m a software engineer. I understand systems. I understand optimisation. I’ve spent much of my professional life building things intended to solve problems.
I’m even building a platform to help artists develop more meaningful relationships with their listeners.
But sometimes I don’t want another system.
I don’t want another dashboard.
I don’t want to analyse retention curves, engagement ratios or conversion percentages.
I just want somebody to hear a song and think, “I like that.”
Is that really such an unreasonable ambition?
Fuck It Wednesday
So today, Wednesday the 14th of October 2026, I’ve made an executive decision.
I hereby declare the first official Fuck It Wednesday.
The Spotify statistics can wait.
The algorithms can go and algorithm themselves.
George can continue insulting celebrities.
And I’m going to open a bottle of wine.
Possibly followed by an IPA or two.
I may even listen to Plastic Spoons myself.
Twice.
That should give my streaming figures a substantial boost, assuming Spotify doesn’t subtract me for having the audacity to enjoy my own music.
And tomorrow?
Well, tomorrow I’ll probably go back into the studio.
I’ll work on another arrangement. I’ll record another vocal. I’ll fiddle with a synthesiser until it produces precisely the sound I’ve been hearing in my head.
Except I won’t.
Because I’ll be too busy making another fucking video.
Or editing a thumbnail.
Or trying to work out why 16,400 people will happily watch an imaginary man insult Noel Gallagher but won’t spend three minutes listening to an actual song.
And when I’m not doing that, I’ll be trying to market software.
Software I’ve spent years developing. Software that solves real problems. Software that people apparently find interesting enough to download.
But not interesting enough to actually fucking install.
That’s a whole other level of achievement.
I’ve somehow managed to build two businesses where the hardest part isn’t creating the product.
It’s persuading people to give enough of a shit to use it.
And the cruel irony is that every hour I spend trying to persuade people to listen to my music is an hour I’m not making any.
Every hour I spend trying to persuade people to use my software is an hour I’m not improving it.
I’m a musician who doesn’t have time to make music and a software engineer who doesn’t have time to engineer software.
Because I’m too busy creating content to persuade people that the things I’ve already created are worth their attention.
And apparently, the solution to that problem is to create even more content.
You couldn’t make this shit up.
Although, technically, I suppose I did.
His name is George.
Anyway, cheers.
And Noel, if you’re reading this, don’t blame me.
George said it.
Lee Painter is a musician, songwriter and software engineer who currently has fewer Spotify listeners than an AI character has opinions. You can find his music on Spotify, assuming the listener count hasn’t dropped below zero again.