Links #695: Digital twins and anxiety Googles
Plus, I touch base with the man behind the OG "Shrimp Jesus" pictures
I realize this image may haunt you forever. (Sorry about that.) But we can't really talk about Shrimp Jesus if you haven't seen it yet.
Shrimp Jesus, you see, has overtaken many a Facebook feed. And as 404 Media and others have documented, these AI-generated, Christ-like crustaceans are part of a perplexing spam campaign designed to gin up engagement for mysterious, quasi-religious pages and drive traffic to shady links. But while I can understand the mass appeal of, say, a soda can Jesus (inventive, unusual — maybe outsider art?) or a buried gold Jesus (Indiana Jones vibes) … I cannot comprehend the allure of Shrimp Jesus to save my one mortal life.
So imagine my surprise when I Googled the term, hoping to find some explanation, and learned that "Shrimp Christ” has actually been a thing for ages. It started at the end of 2021, when some Twitter rando tweeted a weird dream about shrimp that went on to achieve meme status. That meme then became a print, a sticker and a shirt, all sold for the past couple years by a North Carolina artist named Max.
I emailed Max (actual subject line: "Shrimp Christ question”) and asked him if he could shed any light on the spiritual/aesthetic/culinary attraction of the Jesus + shrimp hybrid. (Max was a good sport all around. If you're into this kind of thing, you should buy his prints.)
"As one of my biggest sellers, I also question what draws people to such a random combination,” he wrote in response. "It's random enough to be highly amusing, considerate enough to not offend any religion, and last but certainly not least, appeals to the dedicated shrimp enthusiasts.” Hm.
"While I do know AI art comes with its controversy,” Max added, "I do believe this is a scenario where everyone involved gets elevated.”
Only human ingenuity could prompt an AI to create Shrimp Jesus, he elaborated.
And only AI could deliver this Merman to the Facebook masses.
If you read anything this weekend
"A Digital Twin Might Just Save Your Life,” by Joe Zadeh for Noema. Would you like to know the time and cause of your eventual death? It's a classic thought experiment that gives me the all-overs, even in the abstract. Increasingly, however, the question's not so theoretical: Scientists in Spain are developing exact digital replicas of human organs that can predict the illness and injury that will eventually befall them. Would you revise your lifestyle based on that knowledge? Change when and how you spend your time? Grow alienated from your physical body, in favor of this ~twin~ that lives online? This is a masterful and unsettling piece of work, even if this technology won't reach the masses in my life. Then again … I don't really know when I'm going to die!
"The Delivery Rider Who Took on His Faceless Boss,” by Madhumita Murgia for The Financial Times. This is a David/Goliath tale for the internet age, wherein a quirky, disaffected bike messenger seeks to hack Uber's compensation algorithm and confirms that lots of drivers are getting shortchanged. But the implications here go far beyond Uber and the indignities of gig work: Armin Samii and his UberCheats app illustrate, pretty powerfully, the opacity and unfairness and disenfranchisement that flow from all sorts of decision-making algorithms. Such algorithms inform growing swaths of life and commerce, from who receives public assistance to what targets get bombed in war. Per Murgia, more than *one billion* people now "labor in the service of algorithms” in one form or another.
Two reads on the female mainstreaming of health misinfo. Absolutely and continuously fascinated by the multiple, parallel ways in which apparently apolitical female influencers appear to be normalizing/sanitizing/mainstreaming right-wing health and safety misinformation. For Rolling Stone, EJ Dickson has a story on the "lady carnivores” preaching high-protein, high-fat diets as a form of wellness. (Such diets, which are not recommended by mainstream nutritionists and often entail pretty substantial foodborne illness risks, have traditionally been the realm of conservative male figures like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan.) And for The Washington Post, Lauren Weber and Sabrina Malhi report on the alarming spread of false birth control narratives, many of them propagated by "holistic” TikTokers … with cues from the anti-abortion movement.
"The Oral History of Pitchfork,” by Dan Kois, Nitish Pahwa and Luke Winkie for Slate. A fair warning here, to start: Your enjoyment of this story will rise/fall in *direct* proportion to whatever preexisting interest you may have in mid-2000s taste-making and music journalism. For me, that interest is pretty high, so … I ate this shit up. (Yes, I want to know the scores reviewers regret! Tell me about the headwinds in niche media!) If your interest is more generalized, however, then the fall of Pitchfork is notable largely as a microcosm of larger structural trends in media, which … do likely endanger your favored publications (!).
had a good conversation with Ezra Klein on that subject."Trick Questions,” by Haley Nahman for . A lovely, snack-sized meditation on the modern compulsion to quell anxiety with information — an urge I absolutely see in myself, and am glad to see validated by other people: "I frequently operate as if one more Google search will solve everything, circling around and around the internet, mercifully sedated by information I probably don't need and will forget next week.” Also, the concept of infant "smart socks” is wild/new to me.
In case you missed it
The most-clicked link from last Saturday's round-up was this big Atlantic take-out on the costs of "a phone-based childhood.” Tuesday's edition considered a surprising new study that found online conversation … isn't getting worse.
Among other things, that post describes the pristine moderation in certain Reddit forums, specifically r/science. In The New York Times this week, Kevin Roose argues that "content moderation saved” Reddit. The Verge also has a great story on "Gamergate 2.0,” a harassment campaign targeted at the video game consulting firm Sweet Baby. I was taken by how much tamer this iteration seems, versus the first go-round in 2014.
Finally, a sobering update to the Kategate Discourse: Middleton announced yesterday that she's been diagnosed with cancer. I regret joking, in last week's round-up, that she was obviously fine … though I will gratuitously note that her strain of not-fineness looks nothing like the theories that circulated online.
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Postscripts
QuitTok. Poverty porn. A history of the swipe gesture. The surprising return of the Facebook poke and the rise of the liberal video influencer. In praise of Slack's snazzy hold music. An appreciation for shared Google maps. How to post to LinkedIn without being cringe (… reader, I clicked this link SO FAST).
Generative AI comes for music and creepy evangelical apps come for souls. Why can't we be rid of MLMs? (Prosperity gospel might play a role.) The most-played musician you've never heard of. How chatbots trick us into thinking they live. Meet the "grown up” Trisha Paytas and the the election official tweeting against misinformation. This weekend, don't: Use AI to identify mushrooms. Do: help draw the longest flip book and read new internet lit. Imagine being the first man to ever be jailed for a dick pic. Finally, not least but last: "If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph."
Until next week! Warmest virtual regards,
Caitlin
“not least but last” is so cute 🥺🥺 thank you for featuring culture vulture angel!!! xxxx
Hi Caitlin, read this yesterday and it made me think differently about the last 30 years of literary fiction and internet culture. Thought it might interest you:
https://pioneerworks.org/broadcast/club-med-adderall?fbclid=IwAR0Eo-j38cn6dUqYEuIyFy0I87mwgME1QKSJQqbgxpP3icOWZ8p9iZQcvck