Inherently unfashionable
AI smiles, Insta-scammers, Zoom divorce, social sleeping, doom loops and implausible puffers
About that papal puffer
All five billion humans with internet access fell for a faked photo of “drip Pope” last week, if all the breathy, hand-wringing takes were to be believed. The “world” fell for it. We “all” fell for it. But, reader — I did not!!! And neither, I suspect, did many of the more than one billion people on God’s green, gullible earth who grew up Catholic.
To be clear, I’m not at all religious. I haven’t voluntarily set foot in a Catholic church in roughly 20 years.1 But c’mon — Catholicism is inherently unfashionable.2 It takes only a passing familiarity with the church or the current pontiff to know the big man could and would never rock a Moncler.
So, deepfake pope: early sign of the coming AI apocalypse?
OR: mere reflection of how little most people know about world religions that aren’t their own?
As much as we love an apocalypse, I’ll vote B on this one.
P.S. Nope, it’s not you — this edition mailed two days late. Better late than never I say, every day, all the time, as I arrive a solid 10+ minutes late to everything.
If you read anything this weekend
“AI and The American Smile,” by Jenka Gurfinkel in Medium. AI-generated hands are getting better; AI-generated smiles are apparently not. Instead, image generators tend to slap the same American-selfie-smile on everybody (lots of uncanny examples here!) … even though facial expressions vary widely by country/culture.
“The Campaign to Save TikTok Has Been Years In The Making,” by Hailey Fuchs, Clothilde Goujard and Daniel Lippman in Politico. TikTok has assembled a mindbogglingly expensive, all-star lobbying team to avoid further U.S. regulation. A rare (and kind of unsettling?) behind-the-scenes look at power brokers and their limitations.
“A Scammer Who Tricks Instagram Into Banning Influencers Has Never Been Identified. We May Have Found Him,” by Craig Silverman and Bianca Fortis in ProPublica. Is it me, or do ProPublica headlines often feel just a *bit* too satisfied with themselves … ? Either way, good on them for tracking down this elusive fraudster/aspiring police cadet, who has conned a long list of fascinating D-list personalities out of thousands of dollars.
“Inside the Deepfake Porn Economy,” by Kat Tenbarge on NBC News. In some growing Discord groups, you can now buy custom, non-consensual images of regular people for as little as $65.
“The Age of Average,” by Alex Murrell. Cars, coffee shops, book covers, cosmetics — everything embraces the same Instagram aesthetic.
👉 ICYMI: The most-clicked link from the last newsletter was this Vox video on myopia.
Thanks for being one of my 15,000 hypothetical Gchat friends.
Want to share your newsletter, podcast, job post or product with us? Click here to book a classified ad in the next edition.
Postscripts
“Social sleeping.” Gamified reading. Why tech platforms are getting worse. Thirst trap aesthetics, “scroll-and-swipe doom loops” and TikTok as a cultural force. Against the hobby IG account. Tales of the awkward Zoom divorce. Absolutely no one (decent) asked for this, but what else are “edgy” start-ups for.
Out: prank calls. In: dumb phones. (Also, dumb computers and chatbot roleplay.) Ads are coming for audiobooks and AI is coming for election campaigns. The problem with college acceptance TikToks. A history of data and its discontents. Last but not least, on the influencers who make their money teaching people to get rich.
That’s it for this week! Until the next one. Warmest virtual regards.
— Caitlin
The last time I went for Christmas, to placate my mother, the priest lectured us about giving men (versus women) more credit (MORE credit!!!) for their good deeds/acts of faith/whatever. My mom and I both knew there would be no more placatory masses.
This is an observation, not an insult. Catholicism just isn’t a change-with-the-times type of religion (see footnote #1). Women can’t be priests. Gay people can’t get married. The papal wardrobe has changed little since the early 1900s. And when my aforementioned mother was a kid in Catholic school, the church still did masses **in Latin.** You expect the personification of this institution to wear a trendy jacket??