Bring Back the Damn Gatekeepers: I Fought the Gatekeepers. Now I Miss Them.

So here’s my prediction: We’re heading toward a cultural tipping point where the flood of AI-generated slop is gonna force us to bring back the gatekeepers.

Let me take you back for a second. There was a time, some of y’all remember, when you had to go to a movie theater. Music came from the radio. If you wanted to own it, you had to buy a CD, a tape, a record. Not everyone had a blog. Not everyone was a creator. You actually had to make something. You had to think. It took time. There were barriers. Gatekeepers. And as much as we hated them, we didn’t realize how useful they actually were.

I grew up in an era where I had a computer in my room that I built myself, wires all exposed, running Windows 98 or XP. I was one of the lucky kids whose family had two phone lines, so I could be online without blocking calls. I had early access to the internet, and I was one of the first in my circle with a CD burner. I came up in the Napster era, downloading tracks, trading MP3s, burning mix CDs like it was religion. We were basically stealing music, but we didn’t care—it felt like a revolution. That whole technology boom gave a new generation of bedroom music lovers and bedroom creators real power. It was the start of tech putting creation tools directly in our hands, away from the industry machine.

Alright, back to the gatekeepers for a second. I know I just went full Napster nostalgia on you, but it’s important context. That moment in time helped break the old system wide open—and that’s where the gatekeeper conversation really kicks in.

Gatekeepers helped us sift through the noise. Too many movies? They narrowed it down. Too much music? They filtered. Yes, they got corrupt. Yes, they got bloated. But their original job was to protect attention, not exploit it. Their role in the music gatekeepers era was to preserve quality and manage the flood of mediocrity hitting the internet before it even got online.

Then came the DIY era. I remember this distinctly in the music world. Technology got cheap. You could walk into a Guitar Center, drop a few hundred bucks, and boom, you had a home studio. That’s when I started making music. It felt revolutionary. Screw the gatekeepers, we thought. We’ll build our own platforms. And we did. Music blogs, indie radio, underground playlists. A whole new wave.

But even back then, I remember saying, “There’s too many people making music who probably shouldn’t be.” Harsh, maybe, but it was getting crowded. Then I dipped into DJing. Bought some gear, learned fast, and was spinning in clubs within two months. The OG DJs were side-eyeing me like, “Oh great, another one.” And even though they tried to be polite, “We’re not talking about you,” they kinda were.

And guess what? It eventually happened to me too. Newer DJs flooded the scene, doing exactly what I did. And yeah, some sucked. But some didn’t. Some brought new energy. Myself included. I brought my own twist. I once dropped a deep electro house set so wild even the veteran DJs were like, “How the hell did you pull that off?”

I broke the rules because I didn’t know them. That basement DJ experience taught me that open access is both a blessing and a curse.

Me and my boy Adam King back in '08 or '09, basement of Touch Supper Club in Ohio City. One of my first times DJing at our party called Danger Danger. The woman in the photo was Adam's friend—she DJed too and she was dope. All three of us were spinning that night. I can’t remember the exact date... memory’s trash, but the vibes were real.

Anyway, that whole story is a warm-up for what I see happening now with AI.

I’m an entrepreneur now. Still love music. Still love movies. But I’m watching this explosion of AI tools — automation, agents, funnels, message spam bots — and I’m seeing the same pattern repeat. But worse.

People are flooding the market with AI-generated everything. Products. Services. Fake-ass businesses. Sketchy Etsy shops. Amazon listings that might be run by some backend automation farm. Airbnb accounts that aren’t people, they’re systems. And it’s getting hard to trust what’s real. The good stuff is buried under a digital landfill. This is AI content oversaturation in full effect.

And I think it’s gonna force us to bring the gatekeepers back.

Right now, there are YouTube videos being churned out by bots. Podcasts fully scripted and voiced by AI. And look, I have an AI podcast myself. It’s dope. We wrote the scripts, designed the hosts, added original music, built a tight 12-episode season. I’m not anti-AI. I love AI. I’m anti lazy-ass automation. I’m anti 25 podcasts in a day with zero craft or care. This is the AI slop problem. It's quality vs AI-generated content.

This is the same feeling I had during the ClickFunnels boom — those “marketing dad” types. You know the ones. They got online, found Russell Brunson, and started spamming the web with vitamin sales funnels or digital pork chop ads or whatever. Just junk. And it's still out there.

So here’s my actual prediction. Gatekeepers are coming back.

Not the old-school corporate ones. But new ones. Human curators. Trusted voices. Maybe even algorithmic curators, but with actual taste and filters that people trust. We’re gonna need someone, something, to help us figure out:

• What products are made by real humans

• Which songs weren’t spat out in a second by a bot

• Which movies still have a soul

Again, I’m not against using AI to help you create. I’m talking about when someone hits a button, floods the world with digital garbage, and calls it a business. I saw a guy build an AI agent that generates entire Etsy product lines, from concept to listing to marketing. He doesn’t even touch the product. Now imagine if 10,000 people do that. What happens to Etsy? How do you trust what you’re buying? AI content trustworthiness is collapsing.

That’s why I think we’re gonna circle back. Not to old-school gatekeeping, but something like it. Filters. Curators. Tastemakers. Human curation in AI era might be the only way to balance automations vs craftsmanship.

Because in a world full of slop, quality starts to matter again.

Let’s see if I’m right. I hope I am.

Bring back the damn gatekeepers.