PLEASE LET THE OBSESSION END: The generative AI craze among people over 50 is like crack in the ‘80s. It’s exploding and seems impossible to curb. I feel it’s because a lot of people who previously had no skills have been gifted with a basically free skill to distort reality in pleasing and ever-increasingly dysmorphic ways, and the down side — the corruption of what is real and the depletion of natural resources — is not immediate and quantifiably graspable. So, we carry on, going further and further down this road.
My example — with apologies to the older gay man who posted it — is the above image (at right) of “my husband in the mid-’70s.” He posted it to proudly show how cute his man was as a 15-year-old. ALL the comments gushed. Nobody pointed anything out. Being the exhausted AI scold that I am, I could not resist saying it looks AIed to death (I wasn’t sure if it was fully made up or just a perversion of an original).
In all seriousness, he replied with the original, writing that it was pretty close.
If you look at those two images and think they share almost anything, you need therapy. The AI version takes a 15-year-old and makes him look 20, broadens his chest, hyper-shortens his shorts (adding feet, by the way), changes the entire shape of his head and drastically alters the character of his face. The hair is a more pleasing, fuller texture. This wouldn’t even be a good MISSING poster, it’s so different.
I will never understand why taking a fantastic original photo — so what if it isn’t in focus? It has character and it actually is a person! A person you love! — and just tossing it out and reimagining it and then presenting it as if it were, more or less, the same.
I’m gonna start losing friends over this, because as loud as I’ve been about this, people keep sending me AI slop with the proviso, “I know you hate this, but this one is actually so well done and creative.” It’s not.
No link, just a think.
TWITTER: Haley Stevens has shown herself to be the ULTIMATE asshole sore loser, endorsing vile MAGAt Mike Rogers for the Michigan Senate seat 48 hours before Election Day — and less than 24 hours after continuing to (meekly) endorse El-Sayed. Today, she appeared at a rally with Mike Rogers, of whom she VERY RECENTLY wrote:
She was, rightfully, forcefully condemned by the Michigan Democratic Party:
“We are dismayed that Congresswoman Haley Stevens has revealed herself to be a sellout who used Black Michiganders for a political stunt. Congresswoman Stevens has lost her way, and Michiganders know that Mike Rogers is a shill for Trump and has failed Michigan. We are ready to elect Abdul on Tuesday.”
Haley’s immediately ex-chief of staff says in a statement:
YOUTUBE: El-Sayed had the perfect response, as usual:
TWITTER: Mallory McMorrow is looking better and better in Michigan, and while she will not be the next senator of the state, she could be a senator one day. She handed the Stevens/El-Sayed rift with aplomb.
Now, he (Jewish, and that is material) husband Ray Wert is opening up about Stevens — and he has a lot to say:
“I’ve known Haley Stevens for a long time. Until now, she has always had staff to protect her, prop her up, and keep her safe from her own irrational behavior. What we’re seeing now? This is just raw, unfiltered Haley.
“The Haley who flip-flops and goes from thought to thought without rhyme or reason. The Haley that calls you at 3 AM to yell at you, and then calls you back at 5 AM oblivious to the fact that she even spoke with you at 3 AM. The Haley who bends to the last and loudest voice that tells her something.”
“More often than not that last voice is now her fiancé. And as you can see by what one of her former staff people posted earlier here on X, that appears to potentially be a really troubling relationship.”
He went on to say he tried to get Haley to sign a very reasonable condemnation of Rogers, an op-ed underscoring the anti-Semites on his team and his opposition to core liberal values.
“Initially she was very interested in it. Then she wasn’t. Then she was again. Then she wasn’t. She never signed it … This is just who Haley is.”
Here is the op-ed she never signed:
TWITTER: Charlotte Clymer is also coming clean about Haley’s nutty reversal, revealing that Stevens “promised” her YESTERDAY she was still on board with El-Sayed:
“Feeling a bit absurd in pointing out the obvious and being far kinder than I should have been, I reminded her that the outcome of this senate race will be viewed in the light of a future Supreme Court vacancy, and I expressed a hope that all of us understand the stakes.”
“She assured me she's supporting Dr. El-Sayed, sent me a video of a recent speech she gave blasting Mike Rogers and said this: ‘Still stands. I promise.’”
“She also said she's been sending this video to other folks to make it clear where she stands on this race.”
“Again: that was yesterday.”
POLITICO: People like Haley on the other side are also deranged. You can’t fucking campaign with RFK Jr. and then endorse 10 Democrats. I mean, you can, but what in the fuck do you stand for?! Whatever, we will win and blot out MAGA and MAHA.
HUFFINGTON POST: God damn, Dem. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut has suffered a stroke. He is apparently doing well and expecting a full recovery. Only in his early 50s.
POLITICO: The Alaska Senate race is not gonna be ignored.
STILL WORKING 9 TO 5: Love that Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda ARE political. (From several years ago, but very relevant today.)
NEW YORK TIMES: This is a fascinating and much-needed history of Pizzagate. I’ve been thinking a lot about how the U.S. in particular and the world used to shamefully pretend child sexual abuse was almost nonexistent, and yet now frothy-mouthed lunatics see it everywhere. It is genuinely baffling to me that people who vote, work and pay taxes, who shop in supermarkets and own clothing, think — deeply believe — that Ellen DeGeneres eats children, that Tom Hanks ever met Jeffrey Epstein, that Hillary Clinton flew on his plane to Epstein Island, that celebrities who (let’s face it) don’t even look that young are staying youthful via adrenochrome and/or that demonic forces are a thing.
BBC: Nobody in Northern Ireland who was convicted of a now-abolished gay sex offense has received a pardon.
BBC: I remember when Entertainment Weekly used to assemble reunions of sometimes obscure and often iconic TV shows and movies.
I lived for it, and I fantasized about being able to direct them myself. So, I love all reunions, and I love this one between Fatal Attraction stars Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, especially because Glenn went right back into her crazed character while hilariously recounting the big fight she had to keep the original downer ending of the film. (Video is here, but not yet embeddable.)
EXTRATV: Fan of Heidi Klum? Talk to the hand.
BOY CULTURE: Don’t miss my Gilded Age write-up.
PEOPLE: Martha Stewart dressed up as a homeless woman for Halloween, people rightly looked sideways, she deleted the pic and is now claiming it was to raise awareness.
QUEERTY: It’s irritating I didn’t think of the title It Gets Worse first: