Between the Code Monks and the Beach Models

There are two tribes fighting for the future of the internet, and neither of them has it figured out.

On one side, you’ve got the code monks. Pale-skinned creatures hunched over three monitors, whispering about vector databases, embeddings, and whether the API response time is fast enough to shave half a second off their pipeline. They speak a language only other code monks understand. A secret society of acronyms and Slack threads that feel like scripture.

Their gospel? Stay ahead of the machine. Get closer to the gears, the circuits, the wires. If you can just bend the algorithm to your will, salvation will be yours. You won’t need people. You won’t need to talk. The machine will love you, and you’ll be rich.

But here’s the problem: machines don’t love. They just hum and spit out tokens. And customers don’t buy tokens, they buy trust.

So the monks keep coding, building shrines to efficiency, while their rent is due and their site traffic drops to zero because Google just rolled out another “AI Overview.”

Then there’s the other side.

The beach models. You know them. Maybe you follow them. Perfect teeth, sun-drenched hair, abs that look Photoshopped even though they’re real. Or maybe it’s not the model, maybe it’s the political screamer with a ring light and a fresh outrage for every news cycle.

They’ve figured out one thing the monks never will: connection. They know that if you look someone in the eye, if you wink, if you rant in a way that makes the viewer feel like you are their best friend, you’ll get the click. You’ll get the follow. You might even get the tip jar filled.

But they’ve got their own problem: it’s a business built on fumes. Endless selfies, endless hot takes, endless “look at me.” Some of them strike gold. Most of them don’t. Because likes are not the same as revenue, and attention isn’t the same as a business model.

So here we are.

Between the monks and the models. Between the code and the smile.

And if you’re someone trying to make a living online — maybe you’re a nutritionist, a coach, a language teacher, a personal trainer, or just a human with a little knowledge and a lot of grit — you’re standing in the middle of this messy war zone, trying to figure out which way to go.

The Illusion of the Machine

AI is dazzling. Don’t get me wrong. Ask it for a meal plan, it’ll spit out 20. Ask it to build you a workout split, it’ll sound like it’s been training NFL athletes for decades. It can design logos, write scripts, crank out ads. It can even fake a voice that sounds vaguely like Morgan Freeman if you squint your ears hard enough.

But here’s what it can’t do: give a damn about you.

It doesn’t hear the hesitation in your voice when you admit you’ve fallen off your diet. It doesn’t notice your shoulders sagging on that last rep and say, “C’mon, you’ve got one more in you.” It doesn’t know that your kid just bombed their math test and you’re too tired to cook anything complicated tonight.

AI is a cookbook without a cook. It’s the sexiest girl in the world on a screen, but never the half-as-attractive one across the bar who actually smiles at you.

People don’t want a perfect fantasy. They want the flawed, messy, human-to-human moment.

The Mirage of the Smile

But let’s not kid ourselves. Connection alone isn’t the promised land either.

The world is filled with influencers who built an empire of attention and then realized they had no empire at all. A million followers and not a dollar in the bank. Viral fame and no rent money. Because connection without structure is just noise.

The beach model can sell swimsuits for a brand deal. The screamer can rake in donations from the outrage machine. But when the algorithm shifts, when TikTok bans an account, when people get tired of hearing the same rant… poof. It’s gone.

A wink and a smile get you in the door. But a business plan keeps you there.

The Third Path

So if the monks have no soul and the models have no spine, where does that leave the rest of us?

Right in the middle — which is exactly where you want to be.

The third path is simple:

• Use AI for leverage. Let it do the heavy lifting of drafts, research, endless admin tasks.

• Use yourself for connection. Show your face, your voice, your quirks, your scars. Let people feel you.

• Wrap it in a structure. Products, services, subscriptions, communities. Something that isn’t at the mercy of the next algorithm swing.

You don’t need to be the best coder. You don’t need to be the prettiest face on the beach. You just need to show up, consistently, as someone who helps.

Film a two-minute clip answering a question. Post a messy note that got you unstuck. Share your learning in public. Not polished, not perfect — real. Because real is what cuts through the noise.

And here’s the kicker: you don’t even need to exhaust yourself doing one-on-one Zoom calls. Show yourself helping once, record it, post it. That moment becomes an asset that works while you sleep.

AI scales the work. You scale the connection.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

Look — no one’s coming to your website to read your perfect blog post anymore. Google’s turning into an answer engine. ChatGPT is already replacing half of Wikipedia in people’s minds. The monks are right about one thing: traffic is disappearing.

But that doesn’t mean opportunity is disappearing. It just means it’s shifting.

In this new world, the winners aren’t the ones with the best hacks or the prettiest selfies. The winners are the ones who can stand in the middle — tech-assisted, human-driven, business-structured.

The nutritionist who records herself walking a client through their fridge. The personal trainer who posts a shaky phone video correcting squat form. The language teacher who shares the funny cultural screw-ups their students make. The coach who admits they failed once and shows you how not to.

That’s where the trust is. That’s where the money is.

The Invitation

So the next time you feel overwhelmed — should you dive into the tech race, learn embeddings and RAG pipelines and agent orchestration? Or should you become the next beach model, posting daily thirst traps and hoping for a sponsorship deal?

The answer is neither.

Stand in the middle.

Let AI handle the grunt work. Let your face, your voice, your stories handle the trust. Then put it all into a structure that pays the bills.

That’s the future. That’s the path.

And if the monks laugh at you for being too “soft,” let them. If the models sneer at you for being too “boring,” let them. You’ll still be standing when both of their castles collapse.

Because you’ll be the one thing neither the machine nor the mirror can fake: a human who actually helps.