Video taking off 12x its usual first day

Blake Mackenzie's ChatGPT poem wins Australian Poetry Slam youth prize

Guardian Australia's performance clip draws nearly 50,000 views as the 12-year-old questions digital friendship and the cost of letting AI do the thinking.

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Guardian Australia Story of October 27, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 52,613 views a day, 12 times a normal first day on this channel (4,326).

12-year-old wins top Australian prize for young slam poets

Blake Mackenzie wrote his winning poem only the day before performing it at the Sydney Opera House. His route there began with something rather smaller: a poem written in class.

"I just kept winning and it was all because I wrote a cool poem in class one day," the Newcastle student told Guardian Australia.

The 12-year-old has won the Australian Poetry Slam's top youth prize with a piece addressed to ChatGPT. Guardian Australia's clip of the performance has drawn nearly 50,000 views before its first full day, far beyond the channel's usual Shorts audience.

At the microphone, Blake treats the chatbot as a companion worth questioning, rather than a machine worth marveling at. He asks why always-available digital friendship can still leave someone lonely, then turns to addictive screens and the learning lost when AI supplies the answers. Partway through, he pulls out index cards and continues into fake news and mindless scrolling.

These are broad concerns, but the direct address gives them a particular shape: a young person challenging a supposedly helpful presence about what it actually gives back.

The competition's judges were randomly selected from the audience. Blake reached them through a national event with heats across Australia, writing new material as he progressed. His winning piece wasn't a classroom poem polished for months, but one he had finished just before the final.

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