Is there a weeb in the house? At least one voracious anime fan amongst the readers? This one’s for you (and possibly just me).
Remember how in Deadman Wonderland, Protag-Kun, Ganta Igarashi got deepfaked so hard a whole jury believed an average tween murder-by-explosion-ed an entire classroom of his peers?
That’s what I think about every time I hear or see advances in the technology.
Between facial recognition being used to exercise petty revenge (when it can be bothered to ID people correctly in the first place) and the rise of entitlement towards original art that started with repost aggregation and lead to the current ‘If you don’t let people steal your work with a program you’re ableist‘ rhetoric, what hope can there be?
And the world of putting people where they aren’t just got a little more funding to do it.
Dudebros Matt Stone and Trey Parker of ‘South Park’ fame raised a decently sexy $20m for their AI-generated entertainment content/deepfake farm DeepVoodoo, and there’s definitely more money to come.
That’s how much people love IP theft, and hate paying actors, 3D modelers, costumers, set designers, animators, illustrators, voice actors, and so forth.
It’s interesting and gross to watch two such lauded South Park creators go from making art (okay, fine I hated it, but it WAS art) to taking art, but considering how long they’ve been in the game it’s not that surprising.
Most people who make it big end up selling out and having either their metamorphosis into a ‘Have’ or their continuation of being a ‘Have’ now with added mainstream fame make them into The Man at least a little, but often a lot. Look at Dave Chappelle. Look at RuPaul. Look at GloRilla. Look at formerly ‘Reject False Icons’ animated band, Gorillaz! Even the toons themselves aren’t immune!
There’s always a tinge of sadness to my cynicism on this though – watching famous creatives slamming the door shut behind them and boarding it up. Looking at all the great talent and greater effort out there unrewarded and unpaid because ‘the next best thing’ is always whatever reduces overhead…by reducing headcount.
You killed my feelings! You…well, y’all know the rest.
Emily Drewry is a Staff Writer at The American Genius where she has also been a Web Producer. She holds two Business degrees in Digital Marketing & Advertising as well as Sales Management. She resides in the sunny Orlando, FL and embodies the heart of hospitality. When not working on web projects, she's probably at a theme park or thrifting her next trendy piece, iced coffee in hand.
