Never News: 🗣️ WE ARE NOMINATED FOR A WEBBY and other sundries
Before I begin delivering you the news in the way only I have perfected, LET IT BE KNOWN WE ARE NOMINATED FOR A WEBBY! Our live show episode from XOXO Fest (which you can listen to here) is nominated for Best Live Podcast Recording. I'll tell you more on that down below. But you can VOTE FOR US and I'd strongly encourage you to do so. You do have to make an account to do so (sigh) but my unbiased opinion is that it's still worth it. And if you've already voted for us, grazie mille! Send the vote link to your friends, why don'tcha?
Now, of course, we must wrestle the latest news to the ground like a king cobra! Let's begin.
Some Internet aperitifs...
Arkansas tried (and failed) to instate a minimum age requirement to use social media. FRIENDSTER IS BACK?! A dive into arXiv, the online research repository that has defined the scientific world for decades. A real guy in a Pikachu costume was photographed fleeing the cops during a protest, leading to (ugh) its fake, AI equivalent. In the ongoing discourse around so-called "dumb phones," enter: a "beautifully boring" phone that was created to slash your screen time. And finally, you will be shocked to hear that overuse of ChatGPT has adverse effects on, it seems, the soul.
And now, for the main courses...
THE NEW YORKER: Using AI to "Ghiblify" yourself won't save you
Friend of the show Kyle Chayka wrote this excellent piece covering the latest AI trend du jour of turning your photos into illustrations that mimic the style of Studio Ghibli's animation. Hayao Miyazaki, the famed and largely beloved co-founder of Studio Ghibli, famously hates AI, and the adoption of his lovingly hand-drawn animation style by the likes of Sam Altman [a thousand snakes hissing] comes with so much cruel irony that it denies the need for explanation. This article covers that and more, scratching at the ominous way that AI behaves as if this is somehow "freeing" art and making it accessible, when what it's really doing is offering a poorly copied suggestion of the real thing, hoping our nostalgia white washes the whole experience.
SHOW NEWS: vote for us at the Webby's!!!
Like I said up top, we've been nominated for Best Live Podcast Recording at the Webby's this year. This is a huge deal!! The live show we performed last year at the final (!!!) Xoxo Fest in Portland, Oregon was a blast, and it's remained one of my favorite episodes we've produced as a show. Hans and Jason sound designed the entire episode live onstage, timing everything to what Mike and I were doing during our segments. It was truly unreal to watch, even as we practiced it in the days leading up to the show. Every single part of that episode was a labor of love and I'm extremely proud of what we did, and I think it's very deserving of recognition — there, I said it! So, if you feel the same, I encourage you to vote for us.
404 MEDIA: Vibe coding our way into slop-ville
I certainly wish I still lived in the world I existed in all but 5 minutes ago, before I knew what "vibe coding" even was. For those like me: vibe coding is where people rapidly develop AI modules and features without thinking about the efficiency of the code, just focusing instead on whether it does...something. And that is how we now find ourselves with what I screen-grabbed for you, taken from RecipeNinja — a place where you can, indeed, learn how to make cyanide ice cream and all kinds of other terrible things. This AI tool can, apparently, also offer normal recipes like "lasagna" based only off of photos but, I mean, where's the nightmare in that?
Normally I avoid too many articles about AI in the newsletter, but it is simply what the people are discussing - so here we are. I remember the early days of Lil Miquela, the first fictional character I ever saw who started doing brand campaigns for real-life clothing companies despite the fact that she didn't actually exist. And now, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by the fact that clothing companies are making their own Lil Miquelas, a Lil Miquela Of One's Own, so to speak (sorry). Still, it does suck to read this, yet another moment where companies re-package the brazen use of AI over hiring people as some kind of "creative" endeavor. Ugh.
And yet, despite it all, here we are, at the end of this installment of Never News. Spring is here in Chicago in all its fits and starts, which does drive me slightly insane as I grapple with my yearly terror that this time, winter will actually never end. Hopefully when we meet again, it'll be in the 60's. For now, ciao!
