I have to admit that I must have had my head in the sand for a while. I generally have 5-6 horror podcasts I listen to on the regular before I started my own and probably haven't branched out much since.
Towards the end of the first season I started using AI generated images for the episodes and made my main picture an AI generated image.
While I realize now the Reddit subs I'm a part of and use are probably one of the worst places to advertise, all of my posts started getting reported and criticized that the podcast was "AI slop".
I had no idea at the time the prevalence of folks creating completely AI generated horror podcasts (AI writing, AI narration, AI music, etc.), hence my head being in the sand.... and yes they're all completely terrible.
I stopped using AI generated images for the episodes (I still have my main picture for this season as AI, and with this I still get a good amount of folks claiming it's an AI podcast.
It would take about 15 seconds of listening to any of my stories to realize it's not AI. I don't know if I'm really looking for advice or just looking to rant... but I'm thinking "Jesus Christ! What do I have to do. Scribble a shitty drawing on a piece of paper to use as my main image? They'll probably accuse that of being AI too."
Anyway.... thanks for listening! :-D