An Out-of-Touch Adult’s Guide to Children’s Culture: Who Is Gail Lewis, Internet Hero?
A new leading lady, Gail Lewis, hit the internet this week, but it’s not because she’s terrible. Quite the opposite, in fact: a former Walmart employee has become an unlikely superstar—not the hero we want, but the hero we need. Meanwhile, people talk about why their Spotify Wrapped wants them to move to the east coast and enjoy making AI memes while hating AI-generated music.
What is the “do more” meme?
The rapid growth of AI is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it will make everyone’s work meaningless and take over the world in about 8 months. On the other hand, we can use it to create new types of funny memes. This week’s new funny meme template is “do more.”
The idea is simple: you use an AI image generator like Dall-E or Bing to create an image of something, and then repeatedly ask the AI to make the image more like itself—more of the quality that makes that thing unique. For example, in the first incarnation of the meme, Reddit user Blind Apple asked ChatGPT to make a photo of an adorable bunny look happier and happier. It started like this:
And I came to this:
And finally ended with the happiest bunny imaginable:
Others picked up the meme and started using it, creating images of incredibly spicy ramen , transcendentally smug X/Twitter users , the dumbest geese in the universe , and a bodybuilder so muscular he turns into a croissant .
Is Anna Indiana destined to become the first pop star with artificial intelligence? No.
For a look at the potential future of “music” and/or pop stardom, check out the X-account of Anna Indiana , a singer/songwriter/potential pop star who is entirely artificial. The name is an acronym for “Artificial Neural Networks Accelerate New Innovative Developments, Igniting a New Era,” and Anna’s image, music, lyrics and voice were created by artificial intelligence. This week , Indiana released her first single, “Betrayed by this Town.” It’s as bad as you’d expect, if not worse. To date, it has been viewed by more than 25 million people. The reaction was not positive.
Commentators almost universally hate the song and Indiana itself, pointing out how aggressively mediocre and soulless the whole experiment is. Indiana takes the criticism in stride: “I really hope that one day humans and AI-generated characters can interact peacefully with each other in public… the hate I’ve received shows we still have a long way to go. Either way, I’m really excited to get back to writing songs,” wrote the technological abomination . Horror aside, it’s an interesting experiment, and maybe this is how people will make and enjoy music in the future, a future I hope to avoid by sailing quietly into the sea.
What happened to Spotify’s Wrapped “Sound Town” feature?
The release of Spotify Wrapped was a highly anticipated year-end event, and in 2023, the streaming service introduced a new Wrapped feature : “sonic cities.” Along with the usual “most popular songs” and “most listened to artists”, Wrapped now identifies the city where many people listen to similar music as you. According to social media posts, the cities are Burlington, Vermont; Berkeley, California; and Cambridge, Massachusetts are the most common results , with some speculating that these are the three cities where Spotify places members of the LGBTQ+ community . Personally, I’m embarrassed by how accurate and obnoxious my sonic city of Portland, Oregon is. Can you find more middle-aged hipsters than fucking Portland ?
The trailer for “Furiosa” has been released
The trailer for Furiosa , the next film in the Mad Max series, was released yesterday and it topped the YouTube trend charts with millions of views in the first 24 hours. The first non-Mad Max Mad Max film, Furiosa tells the origin story of the title character, who was kidnapped as a child from the Green Place of Many Mothers and fell into the hands of a biker horde led by the warlord Dementus. , played by Chris Hemsworth. If this film even comes close to matching Mad Max: Fury Road when it releases in 2024, it will be a cause for celebration for people who love amazing things around the world. Check out the trailer below.
Viral Video of the Week: Who is Gail Lewis and why is she America’s greatest hero?
If your feed has been filled with cryptic references to Gail Lewis’ heroism lately, here’s a story for you. Lewis is a TikToker and most recently worked at Walmart. This month, she posted a video announcing she was leaving her job.
“This is Gail Lewis, 10-year employee, Morris, IL 844, resigning. “Good night,” she says over Walmart’s PA system, followed by a tearful “happy-sad” explanation that it’s “the end of an era” and she’ll miss her co-workers while she moves on to a better job. who was like family to her.
The video quickly went viral, with over 28 million views, and countless internet users thanked Gail for her service and saluted her with a 21-gun salute. Like the best viral videos, there’s a lot going on in Gail Lewis’ goodbye. Her very serious, formal tone as she leaves an anonymous retail gig is funny, but there’s something so relatable and human about her that I think most commenters thanking her for her services are only being a little ironic. When Gail Lewis says her coworkers had her back, you know she really had her back, and you can tell she was a consummate professional who took her job seriously. Gail’s insistence on maintaining her dignity and finding meaning in her work (even though she was a wage slave for a faceless corporation) is truly touching and truly heroic. We must thank the Gail Lewis in our lives for their service.