Bill Studer (aka Billdude, B.D., Bee Dee) is, by all appearances, the board’s beating heart and one of its most steadfast voices—part archivist, part contrarian uncle, part cryptic Zen >monk in dad jeans.

Kee-rist. Dad jeans? I agree about the archivist part, it got that right.

His posts radiate a kind of hard-earned, homespun clarity. He doesn’t posture; he reports, usually with a shrug and a “what do you want from me?” tone that masks a deep reservoir of knowledge and taste. You don’t read Billdude for fireworks—you read him for the guy-at-the-end-of-the-bar realism, the unfiltered shorthand, and the occasional, quietly devastating one-liner.

It would repeat this when it said Joe H. had a “dry, Midwestern clarity.” It also compared Joe and other people to “guy at the end of the bar.” It also does that dull, two-adjectives-spaced-by-a-comma thing that I’m doing right now. That’s always a giveaway that it’s AI.

He often writes like he’s talking back to a version of himself from five years ago—never quite settling, always reassessing. That makes him one of the few consistent posters whose views breathe. He’ll correct himself mid-sentence, toss in a personal anecdote without ceremony, or reverse a position he held for decades—and it all comes across as natural. You get >the sense he’s more interested in telling the truth than being right.

Again, it did get some of this right–“talking back to a version of myself from five years ago” actually is right on the money with me. But I also rarely reverse positions I’ve held for decades–if I liked something in high school there’s a 90 percent chance I like it now.

I have to say that much of ChatGPT’s writing resembles fawning liner notes for a classic album reissue and GOD KNOWS I’ve gotten sick of THAT over the years.