Beauty gurus x ChatGPT
A controversial collab.
Keep scrolling for why Labubus are dominating social media. (Sorry.)
In the beauty and lifestyle world, a trend has been circulating for a while— one where the creator asks ChatGPT, or any AI tool, to suggest their makeup routine or outfit. These videos have become a hot topic in the r/BeautyGuruChatter subreddit, with one user taking to the platform to ask, "Thoughts on Creators Using ChatGPT?"
The user shared that they have noticed an uptick in beauty creators posting these kinds of videos and subsequently receiving backlash for it. To conclude the post, they added that they are not necessarily a fan of this kind of content or AI, more generally.
Screenshot via Reddit. Soon, the responses came rolling in, with users expressing a similar sentiment.
Many respondents shared the same frustration, stating that it feels lazy, generic, and boring—mainly because AI draws from existing content and images online.
As one user wrote, “It’s just lazy and hopping on a trend which is contributing to the very detriment, and degradation of the environment and using your noggin to put together something, whether artistically or not.
There were very few positive comments. At best, users were giving these creators the benefit of the doubt, assuming they posted such a video because it was a trend—not because they supported AI. Others added that some viewers may enjoy this kind of content if they are casual AI users.
Off the back of this, there was also rather extensive discussion over which creators receive backlash for these kinds of videos and which manage to dodge it. As expected, much of this depends on the audience of each creator and the echo-chamber viewers fall into.
“It is so easy to forget how tailored our online environment is to each of us, so I was shocked to find so many people who didn’t care about what I felt was so obviously wrong,” the OP responded to one comment. “I feel like my distaste for AI is the rare instance where being exposed to internet discourse led me to have the right take lol.”
Ultimately, it's clear that creators are facing more and more backlash for using AI. This thread is just one example. Another recent instance was MrBeast, who was heavily criticised for promoting an AI tool to create thumbnails.
Read the full discussion via Reddit.
Fanfiction writers battle AI, one scrape at a time
On the topic of AI, communities across the internet are fighting for their lives, trying to stop AI from plagiarism and stealing intellectual property. In a new piece for The Verge, Decca Muldowney explores how the fanfiction community are pushing back against AI and how this technology threatens authors and readers alike.
Muldowney begins by mentioning an instance where a user uploaded almost 13 million fanfics from AO3 to a company that hosts various AI models and software. Once this was discovered, fanfiction enthusiasts flooded Reddit and Tumblr, expressing concern.
One Tumblr user even went on to build a search engine that allowed authors to check if their work had been uploaded to the AI software.
Having said that, some users did define the user who uploaded the stories, saying that they had likely been scraped by big tech already.
In the piece, Muldowney also interviews one fanfiction writer named Nikki, getting her insights on how AI is impacting the space. Nikki notes just how important fandom is to her, offering a sense of belonging and community.
“Fandom is largely a gift economy. We’re just here to have fun and do things out of the goodness of our heart. And to give things to each other and make work in community,” she begins.
From here, Nikki highlights just how dystopian and inhuman the rise of AI feels compared to the hard work that goes into writing fanfiction.
“This is something that takes time and effort and your heart and your soul, and you do this in a community,” Nikki tells the journalist. “And then you’re telling me you’re just going to poop it out two seconds on a screen…It’s theft at its core. There’s no ethical use of something that’s built on stolen labor.”
Unfortunately, the threat of AI is continuous. Every time the community attempts to address one scrape or upload to an AI model, another issue arises. Oddly enough, there are even members of the fan fiction community who will use AI—even with such strong calls against it.
“Some readers, eager to get new updates of their favorite fics, have taken to uploading them into ChatGPT to generate new chapters, much to the consternation of some authors. Some have taken to locking their stories, requiring readers to have an AO3 account to access them or deleting them from the internet altogether,” Muldowney explains.
Nevertheless, many in the community are continuing to fight against AI — and while there have been some minor successes, it is an ongoing battle.
Read the full story via The Verge.
I'm an adult and I'm wondering if I can still like teen media
Fanfiction is a form of media that has been enjoyed across different age groups (even when some of it should only be for adults, to be honest). That said, it is not uncommon for adults to consume content intended for teens and tweens either. In a recent piece for the Pop Priestess Newsletter, Alyssa Capri questions whether this should actually be the case.
Capri begins by reflecting on her experience watching Euphoria, saying that when she started watching the show, she felt uncomfortable seeing teenagers "doing drugs, having pretty explicit sex, and making the absolute dumbest possible decisions." This experience left her questioning who the show was actually for.
“Everything about the show, from its cinematography to its depiction of female bodies, indicates it was made with fully formed frontal lobes in mind,” she writes. “This fact creates a strange cognitive dissonance within overthinking adults like myself. By consuming a show supposedly ‘for teens,’ are we collectively contributing to the erosion of true teen media in film, TV, and literature?”
She argues that Twilight was the beginning of the dissolution of teen media. But it wasn't necessarily the content that was the problem, but rather the industry's response to what came next.
After the conclusion of successful series like Twilight, Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars, the target audience had aged out of this kind of media.
This trend intensified through the 2010s, with the rise of reboots and remakes, which fed into Millennial nostalgia and simultaneously aged up content.
“Because capitalism seeks to maximize audiences for profit, YA media has bastardized itself in the years since Whip It and Juno to include adults in teens’ business,” Capri reflects. “Somehow, teenagers are no longer seen as a viable market unto themselves; their voices are swallowed by greedy adults who yearn for the past.”
Read the
via Substack.Is pop music overrun by white mediocrity?
2024 saw the rise of three extremely talented artists in pop music—Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, and Charli XCX—all of whom were white (or white-passing) women. While we love to see pop girlies thrive, there is a definite racial divide. White artists are repeatedly afforded a level of visibility in the industry that women of colour are not. In a TikTok posted by @aishamarienoelle, she explores why.
In the video, currently sitting at 100K views, Aisha makes the claim that pop music is overrun by “white mediocrity.” While she doesn’t name any specific artists, she invites the audience to take a moment and think of some of the most prominent pop artists in the space.
Aisha then asks, “If you see a white pop female artist and you ask yourself, ‘If this person were Black, would they be in the position that they are in right now?’ and the answer is no…” before covering her mouth and looking away from the camera.
She continues by noting that many of these artists are excused for mediocrity because audiences love the “vibe,” while Black artists are not afforded the same grace and often only get half as far—regardless of their talent or substance.
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This, of course, is not a new phenomenon. Black female artists have long had to chart a path while being held to near-impossible standards.
Beyoncé is a case in point. Audiences have expected her to deliver perfection during every era, in a way that white artists never have to. The fact that she became the most awarded artist in Grammy history before finally winning Album of the Year (and only just this year) says it all.
Watch the full video via TikTok.
The labubu craze is getting out of hand
In a new video for Swell Entertainment, Amanda Golka discusses the internet’s obsession with Labubus—following up on her previous video that explored the cult of blind boxes.
She begins by highlighting the rise of the “Labubu distribution system,” noting that even those who aren’t fans of Labubus often feel an unexpected urge to care for one once they encounter it.
“I know people at least five people — either people I know directly or have seen people sharing their stories on social media — who have just found a Labubu. Whether it's in perfect condition or thrashed condition, they feel an instinct to care for the Labubu, whether they like it or not,” she begins. “Someone even said, ‘I genuinely hate this symbol of capitalism, but I feel like it's my responsibility to make sure it's cared for.’“
Amanda goes on to highlight the issue of reselling—with many people rushing into Pop Mart stores, buying up all the stock, and then selling the items for profit.
As she notes, this all comes down to how collections and collecting have become commodified—something that Amanda attributes to social media.
“I do blame social media for this honestly because I feel like there are so many people that have gone viral for years over their collections,” she says. “Because of the rise of [these] trends like ‘Oh my God, look at my collection’ and ‘What collections do you have?’ — it’s become about the instant gratification of completing a collection as quickly as possible, rather than the slow, intentional process of building it over time and growing it responsibly.”
Having said that, she suggests that the decline of slow, intentional collecting has helped fuel the frenzy around Labubus that we are now seeing on social media.
Watch the video via YouTube.