Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - AI’s destroying seasonal content

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

This year, pumpkin spice lattes are being served with a side of AI slop. Autumn vistas generated by artificial intelligence tools are clogging up Pinterest and Instagram. Taylor talks to Vox’s senior correspondent Rebecca Jennings about how AI is warping our perspective of what nature actually looks like. They also discuss Rebecca's recent reporting on “The cultural power of the anti-woke tech bro" and “The Carrie Bradshaws of TikTok." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Taylor Lorenz. Welcome to Power User. Imagine you're sitting at home sipping a pumpkin spice latte and scrolling your feet. You come across a tweet that says dreaming of days like this, with the perfect photo of a cozy little coffee shop on a rainy autumn day. But then you look closer and something's off. Maybe the bread doesn't look right, or the table is inexplicably wet, or one of the coffee mugs has an amorphous blob floating in it. This is the latest seasonal variety of AI slop, and it's taking over social

media. My guest today is Rebecca Jennings, a senior reporter at Vox covering social media and internet culture. She read about the rise of artificial fall vibes for Vox, and today we're going to talk to her about that story and more. Rebecca, welcome to Power User. Hi, thanks for having me. Also, are you guys hearing my cat? Your cat seems like it's losing it. I am so sorry. Because of daylight savings time, my cat does not realize that he's not getting fed for another hour. He thinks it's at its inner time, but it's actually in an hour. So I very much apologize as for the meowing. Have you seen that meme that's like they don't know you know and it's like and it's like the animals and they're like they don't know what time it is or like it's dinner time. And the dog is like

mauling the owner. Yeah, that's my life today. So you wrote this great piece recently about how AI Slop is coming for fall and how basically all over Instagram, you know, we're seeing AI Slop being promoted on these sort of like fall aesthetic pages. Can you tell me a little bit about what's happening and started to realize this phenomenon. Yeah, so I noticed this on X, a couple months ago, I feel like, it was probably like September. And there was this picture that I definitely thought was just a picture of Edinburgh. It, like, looked exactly like, but it was like something was obviously off in the way that AI images are often, like, just slightly off. And it had come from this account, I think, called Fall aesthetic with a bunch of fall emojis in its name. And it is like a ton of

followers and their photos go really, really viral on Twitter. But this one, it kept, kept getting quote tweets being like, why would you need AI to make this? There are a million photos of if you want to make something looking like Edinburgh in the fall. Just Google Edinburgh in the fall. And so people got really angry about it. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I wonder if that's happening anywhere else. And so then I realized if you search Pinterest for like fall vibes photos, so many of the top photos were clearly AI generated.

And like when you first scrolling through them, they don't look that different. But then you're like, why is this pillow made out of bath mat material? It was like these very bizarre telltale signs that were just like very insidious. And like, as someone who just loves fall a lot, I'm like, what is the point of making this when these images already exist? And that kind of was our way into like the AI Slop conversation. I mean, I feel like there's been so much we've talked about in regards to AI Slop. And we know that in addition to like shrimp Jesus and all the sort of bizarre stuff that's going brow on Facebook, there's also a lot of aspirational home content or luxury content.

I think what was interesting to me about the fall stuff is, well, we're both from New England. I think you're from Vermont, too, which is like the capital of fall. Exactly. But so many of this stuff that I saw that was like fall content was sort of this like extreme versions of New England where like all of the trees are red and orange in this way that just like doesn't exist in nature. But I think also people that don't experience fall might imagine it to be. And I just I feel, I don't know. Like how do you think that these AI images are true? changing, like our perception of nature.

Yeah, no, that's such an interesting question because I think the same thing kind of happened with, like, Instagram generally. Like, when Instagram came out, it, like, it really encouraged the use of these really heavy filters. And so it changed the way we, like, saw the world. The Hefe filter. Yes. Oh, my God.

That was the best for the leaves to remember. Yes. Oh, my. And it's like, and now we're just so used to seeing, you know, influencers use face filters, basically on TikTok or something. They're just like, it just makes my lashes a little longer. And it just, yeah, it's completely. changes the way we see human faces. I think that's like, you know, you see plastic surgery

trends making people look more like they do online. And I think the same thing happens to nature when like for years, you know, the most viral fall photos were ones that were heavily edited. Like as anyone knows when they go to take a picture of fall foliage, it looks like crap. It looks brown in your phone camera, right? It's like it doesn't capture. It's like a sunset. No photo of a sunset is ever going to be as like magical as it is in person. But people have found ways to edit their photos to make it look as magical as it does. And AI is obviously taking from those heavily edited photos and creating something even more hyper-realistic and fake-looking so that it makes the real world look dull or too sharp by comparison. And yeah, I think it's just this very insidious way

we look at nature, especially when you consider the irony that like, you know, these technologies use up so much energy that like it's contributing to climate change, which is like making fall disappear in many parts of the world. And so it's just like so dark. dark and grim. I know. I feel like we're increasingly like losing access to nature and fall and places, like just these intense like seasonal moments that we used to have. I mean, one thing with theme accounts, right, especially sort of these like nature driven theme accounts is they are so tied to like seasonality or weather phenomena. Like, I mean, now I'm starting to get all of the like holiday ones because a lot of these ones like pivot through the seasons and

you're seeing these like snow covered landscapes, you know, know in a way that, I don't know, where I'm from, at least in Connecticut, like, it hadn't snowed very much for years, you know, but you're seeing, like, this idealized version of the seasons almost. Totally. And, like, this always bothered me. As a Vermont or someone who's very protective of, like, our sort of specific charm that people love to, like, commercialize, especially online. Every year, you'd get, like, these really, like, here's, like, our travel guide through the state of Vermont to look at the foliage or whatever, like, you know, when exactly to go. And it just makes it really unpleasant to be there. Because people are expecting it to be, like, very luxurious.

And Vermont is not a very luxurious place. Like, it's very rustic. And, you know, when people kind of paint it as this autumn Disneyland, it sort of warps what it actually is, which is just like a regular place that, like, happens to have good foliage. So that always, like, really bothered me. And then at the same time, you have people doing this for every season possible. So it's like, in the summer, it's all about Europe, right? Like, you can't get away from, like, the Mediterranean posting. Yeah, Positano. And in the spring, it's all cottage core.

It's all, like, cute bunnies and flowery fields. English countryside. Yeah, it's like, England is spring. Mediterranean is summer. Vermont, New England is the fall. And the winter is just, like, Canada, I guess, like, because that's, like, where it snows still, like, consistently. And I really started noticing that in the panes.

pandemic because I think people were really looking for ways to segment their time. And so it made it feel like time was passing and moving. And I do think there's, that's so much of an echo of this where it's like, you know, more of us are working from home. Like we want to be reminded that time is passing and things are changing and moving even if maybe we feel like we're stuck or lonely or whatever. Yeah. And I just feel like we're looking for more extreme versions of the seasons. Yeah. Like I don't know. I mean, I've course when you're a child, like it's all very extreme and it feels very slow. Like the year feels so slow that like, you know, Halloween seasons for, seems forever, whatever. But I do feel like, I don't know, I was reading Emily Sundberg's substack today. And she was talking about all these influencers putting up their Christmas tree. And Macy's already has like the Christmas lights. And it just, it does feel like just the commodification of everything, like through, especially through social media has made it where it's like, all right, now we've rebranded for Christmas. Now we've rebranded like almost the way. that like department stores would.

Yeah. Maybe like 50 years ago, but now sort of all of us do that, especially with our homes, like all of the like home influencers. Do you follow like Turtle Creek Lane? It's a Mormon family in Texas that like goes all out for every holiday and truly rebrands their entire house with every single holiday season. Like that stuff, I'm like, I do get it because I think especially about people like that live in like the sunbelt or the south.

Like I have been told that like they tend to really. really emphasize the seasons because you don't get them as much. And I'm like, oh, I totally get that. But then when it comes to like, you know, you have to buy new decor every season, I think that's, like, incredibly wasteful. And I wrote about this a couple of years ago with like when everyone was trying to rebrand that fall as like Meg Ryan Fall. And it was just like, all of this is just like, this is just ads for clothes, like ads for sweaters and oversized blazers and like little loafers. It's like this was becoming, you know, another way. And I don't think TikTok shop existed. But now, all these seasonal changes are really just like marketing for dumb affiliate links for like regular

TikTok users to be like, buy this like $2 scarf or whatever. And it's all junk. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of like why I think also you're seeing so many of these theme accounts like AI generated especially crop up. And I think you wrote about this too. But like there's this entire like faceless account industry that's like AI sort of automated

content used to push products. Yeah. No, it's like this has become such like a moneymaker for people because it's literally, it's so easy to produce. You can produce it like at scale, especially with AI that like a normal person making that stuff couldn't possibly keep up with that demand. You can like take these courses that teach you how to use chatGBT and mid journey and tools like that to go viral on Facebook or Instagram. New York Magazine had one guy in Kenya basically he'll like type to chat gbt write me 10 prompts next to like a picture of jesus that will bring high engagement on facebook and then he will use those prompts into like mid-durney and then post it and then depending on the platform you can make x amount of money per views and

likes there are ticotkers making up to five thousand dollars per month there are facebookers who say like they can get um like a hundred bucks per 1,000 likes you now can just run these accounts that are incredibly popular and like engagement bait bait even though like normal people that are going to Instagram or Pinterest or whatever like they're not looking for AI generated stuff they're looking for actual inspiration like or they're looking for knitting patterns or something and now an AI slop has taken over that so it's like these are actual things that are like making it less interesting and fun to be online it's harder to like find entertaining or informational content on the internet now because of this stuff are we at like peak aspiration internet like

So much of it is just too aspirational. It's like the like Vermont house is like too perfect looking or too. I mean, of course you can like see the weird like AI like, you know, imperfections. But like it also just feels like it's like twisting our like view of the world and kind of like what we aspire to. Like we will never be able to find that perfect cafe with like the perfect rain with like the perfect everything. Like it seems like so much of like what we were worried about in the 2010s about like Instagram. I. idealizing life. Like, it's now on super speed with AI. And I don't know. It's just like, it's like, is it exacerbating these problems? No, it's absolutely. And I think I feel the same way about AI generated like humans. Like, like the way that AI makes women look. Like, you know, always, always cleavage, always super tiny waist, like big boobs, like very smooth skin, very like young looking. Like, you'll have like the body of like a grown woman and then like the face of like a 13-year-old. It's so weird. And I think like what this is reflective of how the people that run these platforms like want to view the world. And so they want to view the world as

in like, wow, look at how cool outer space is. Here's an AI generated photo of like the stars or whatever. And look at this woman who's like my ideal of what a woman is. And so I feel like as, you know, our tech overlords like remake the world in their image, like AI is one way that they're like kind of marketing that vision to the rest of the world. And it's just like, yeah, and it's, it's dark. It's super dark. Also, Zuckerberg literally just said on his most recent earnings called it, we're going to see more AI. And he called it exciting. And he's like, we're going to have more AI content on the feed. It's like, I mean, this is ultimately what they want. Also, because especially meta and Zuckerberg, no one is more anti-content creators than them. Like, they do not like, like,

like the creator world. So I think if they're like, oh, great, we can automate content win, win, you know. I think like one of the, something I referenced in the piece was that like, rather than, you know, being concerned about AI slap on their platforms on threads, like the official meta account posted an AI generated photo of the Northern Lights over San Francisco, which like didn't happen. Wait, it did? Yeah. And I think I saw that image and didn't realize it was. Ah. My boomer moment. It's coming for me.

Well, because couldn't you see the Northern Lights like pretty far south for like at some point? Yeah, it was like all over the country. But as a former NASA engineer pointed out on that thread, they were like, hey, this is actually like not a good idea to post. It like gives people really the wrong impression of what the sky is. Yeah. But that's just an example. I think like meta is just the worst offender when you think of like the mainstreaming of AI content and this sort of like low quality content and just misinformation and our. broken media climate. Yeah. And like the censoring of real information and anything like political or

or newsworthy or interesting. Or newsworthy at all. Like they're censoring like wildfire information. I mean, the irony of them censoring like the amount of legitimate information that we need around about the world around us and then just pumping us full of AI crap is terrifying. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's so interesting that like these companies, because they've invested so much in AI. They're not going to come out and be like and say that like AI slap is a problem on their platforms because it's, A, it's not. It's like it's driving engagement. And so it's like, yeah, we're actively like courting your 78 year old grandmother to get scammed by some AI con artist like based who knows where. And it's like, but they can't come out against it because they've

invested so much of their reputations and literal money into whatever AI search tools that they're building. Do you think there's any chance that we're just in sort of like peak AI now? Like this stuff is just being used by so many scammers and it's such slop and like it's become such a meme that maybe some of these fears are like unfounded and like we'll actually just start craving more authentic content and this content will be sort of like looked down on. Like maybe maybe it won't become as normalized. I would love if that were the case. I just don't. I think I think the aesthetic will will evolve honestly.

But I think people are using tools like chat GPT in very real ways that it's not going to become like a passing trend like the Metaverse and Web3 was because people didn't just like there weren't use cases for it. But I think as AI evolves, the look of it will change. But I think the idea that all platforms will be covered in AI slop is a very real fear. And I don't think we're at peak of that yet because people are making money on it. will just like hate it then and then go to platforms that aren't covered in AI slap. I think that would be great. I think we should do that. I guess it's too bad that meta ran all the other platforms out of business.

Exactly. Like there really isn't anywhere else to go. Like you could see like when when Musk took over Twitter and there was this like rush to create the next Twitter and none of those have really popped off. Like the I mean, blue sky kind of, but like very niche audience threads like it's garbage. Like, Reds is like tough. It's a tough read. Yeah. I think the fact that like Pinterest has fallen says a lot.

I know. Pinterest was like once like the last bastion of like normalcy. But it's just covered in ads and AI slop now. And it's just like such a bummer. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, I'm going to be talking to Rebecca about the aesthetics of straight men online and war. So much of this conversation around aesthetics and idealized images makes me think of this other piece that you're wrote that I thought was really good called the cultural power of the anti-woke tech bro. And you sort of

examined the aesthetics of these men online that also I think leverage a lot of like AI aspirational content, although I don't think it's like quaint fall landscapes. It's more like cyber trucks, energy drinks, rooms full of unattainably hot women. Can you talk to me about how that aesthetic has emerged and a little bit of what you wrote in that article? Yeah, for sure. So I feel like that aesthetic is like the aesthetic of the entrepreneur hustle guy, the guy who thinks that, you know, the way to live life is to optimize everything. They want to have the biggest body. They want to drive the biggest truck. They want to make the most money in the least amount of time. They're always talking about like 10xing. I feel like something Xing is a big thing. Oh my God, the Grant Cardones.

Yes. Yeah. Like the people that model their lives after a Grant Cardone type. Obsession is not a problem. It is a gift. How many have you been obsessed with something before? Couldn't get off of it. You're like, God damn, I can't, I just can't get, I can't get enough of it. I think the cyber truck is probably like the best example of the thing that represents what they are. It's like, you know, it's kind of like unabashedly ugly. It's like, someone else described it as the one car that you could never compare to a woman. Because it's just like so just angular and, you know, it's just bizarre.

Anyway, but I think energy drinks too, you know, that kind of goes with their whole like, I will optimize my life. And so, you know, you hear them often talking a lot about wellness and, you know, promoting these really, like, junk science things to get you to buy their, like, vitamins that, like, will make you, like, boost your vitality and, like, boner pills and stuff. So much of it, I mean, well, I was actually trying to get, like, have you seen the Instagram account that's, like, the Bali men's retreat? Yes. Yes. Some man we know needs to go to here, but there's this, like, men's retreat in Bali that is the most like homer erotic like Instagram account I've ever seen where it's just like shortless men like do you want to be around other men like sharpening your skills like against other men like it's just so weird and they just like work out and eat meat and I guess talk about like running their drop shipping empires but um but it like feels like towards this where you know like you're mentioning how like a cyber truck is the one like truck that you can't compare to a woman so much of this aesthetic seems driven to appeal to other men and not women.

Like, it seems like women are sort of almost completely not part of that aesthetic in the way. Like, they're just sort of like accessories, but it's really about men appealing to men. 100%. And I think, like, a really, like, a really big fascination of mine is, like, the growing gender war that's happening online. It's like, you see it even among, you know, women who are giving dating advice being, like, you know, like men are terrible. So you need to treat them like, you know, an ATM or something.

something. And then that's somehow supposed to be like empowering. And then, and on the other hand, you have men being like, hooking up with a woman is like the gayest thing you can do, which are like, like, it's just like these, these really bizarre like twists of, of like either therapy speak or like just really old, gendered arguments, um, that are being like, like, levied against people in this specific moment. And then you have the rise of, I think, a lot of this women's content online that I think a lot of these men get very triggered by, which is, I mean, you wrote about this also in a piece about, I think you called it like the Carrie Bradshaw's of TikTok. And you wrote about another woman recently, too, who like turned her breakup into content

and like talk about their relationship and their relationships with men very openly. I mean, I support like women talking frankly about their dating experiences. I just think so much of those conversations get warped by this like mob mentality on TikTok. Or, in the case of a lot of people, the desire to find the real people behind these stories. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I wrote about this with West Elm Caleb, who I think is a really good example of, like, kind of normal red flag, kind of toxic date. Like, he ghosted a couple women. I'm sorry. Like, this does not need to be like the witch hunt of this. Say a little bit for people that don't remember. Like, yeah. Yeah, it was basically this guy was a fuckboy. He ghosted

a couple women. These women went on TikTok and there was like a nationwide witch hunt for this man. Like, people were harassing him in like the COVID testing line. Yeah. Becca, that was one of the few things I got canceled for on TikTok. Do you remember? I like posted this like defense of him. I was like, hey, like maybe we shouldn't docks him. This was like early TikTok days too.

I think this was 2021. Were you called not a girl's girl because that is the favorite insults of choice? Yes. They were like, just say you want to fuck him. No. Oh my God. I was like, no, I just don't know if we should, he should be like, fired necessarily when he hasn't really committed any sort of like, you know, if he had

assaulted someone. It was like he just kind of was like a dick. Yeah. I was like the whole time. Yeah. So basically a couple of years ago, yes, a bunch of women were like, this guy like, you know, ghosted me after like a couple of dates. And I'm like, and like, that's it? And then a couple of girls like, I went out with him too. And, you know, you could as you could frame that story as like, you know, this is the beauty of social media and female empowerment. And, and sisterhood and solidarity. And I think what I saw was like, oh, no, this can be turned on anyone now. And that's, you know, not something that we should be encouraging.

And I think the same thing happened to couch guy who ended up writing about his experience and Slate. And it was like, it was horrible. Like he got like, there were adult like psychologists on TikTok being like, like, they were like looking at his body language and being like. Well, this was a guy. Yeah, just for people that didn't see it. Right.

It was like a guy that like hugged his girlfriend in a TikTok video and didn't seem enthusiastic enough or something? Yeah, it was because so his girlfriend surprised him at college and when, and they, and she filmed her like self-entering. And when she entered the room, he was like sitting on the couch with like two girls or something. But it was like a big, like there was like a kind of like a party atmosphere. So it was like sitting down with two girls.

And when he saw her, she like didn't look excited enough or something. I watched that clip and I was like, oh, that's like sweet. But like maybe if I posted that or if I filmed that, I'm like, maybe I wouldn't post that. because he doesn't look that thrilled. But at the same time, it's like he was probably like really tired or something. And like who cares? It's like because he didn't have like excited enough reaction. Like we've got to find things that are like worth calling out by powerful people.

And instead we're using like the mobilization of social media to find this college kid who's like, you know, didn't really do much wrong. To me like the two seem kind of related. The like hypermasculine world. and then this other world where like women are speaking a lot about men and their relationships with men sometimes in like a way that's ultimately kind of cruel, you know? Yeah, right. It's like it's one of those things where, you know, people, I think on both sides, it's people viewing life as a springboard to go viral on social media. And like people have done that forever. But like it's doing it in a very gendered way. If you go on the

common sections of either one of those people, you'll see like it's pretty much all female viewers or it's pretty much all male viewers, unless they go so viral that it crosses, uh, it makes the jump and then it's a disaster. But no, I think those, those two kind of pieces of content are just so like aestheticized versions of what it means to be a woman versus what it means to be a man. What, what it means to be a woman, clearly if you're watching like a lot of dating content, it's like your job is to look pretty and find a man and go on dates and then talk about them to your audience of women in these sort of ways where it's like, so I went out with Mr. C and he didn't pull the chair out for me, but like he paid, it's like, it's not always like materialistic

like that, but sometimes it is. And I guess it's a very like gendered way to center your content, which there's nothing wrong with that, but it is like, because it's so popular, I do think it's like worth pointing out. Yeah. Yeah. Things are happening. Well, this has been such a fun chat. Thank you so much for joining Power User. Thanks for having me. That's the show. You can watch full episodes of Power User on my YouTube channel at Taylor Lorenz.

Power User is produced by Travis Larchuk and Jelani Carter. Our executive producer is Zach Mack. Power User is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you like the show, give us a rating or review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and subscribe to my newsletter, Usermag.com, for more online culture news. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode of Power User. See you then.