Instantly giving me Prometheus-flashback.

You have to laugh as to not rage-cry.

I hope your mom is still here and that she reads that quote.

Hugs for you both (and your sibs)

My earliest was Diana!

But yeah, I feel like the 2020s has been one “where we’re you when…” after the other. At this point I also just kinda don’t give a fuck anymore. I remember where I was when lockdown happened. I remember where I was when I heard Russia had sent missiles at Kiyv.

I don’t remember where I was when trump was shot at, elected, got into office his second time and the subsequent assault on my senses his administration has committed to ever since.

I’m Danish, but I don’t even remember where I was when I heard they wanted to annex Greenland. I just don’t care anymore.

I have an old ww2 diary that I inherited many years ago that still had many pages left in it. I started documenting my life once a year until covid and documented as much of that experience as possible because I thought it would be fun to have two world events in one old book. And then Russia vs Ukraine happened and I wrote a bit about that. Then the inflation and I barely mentioned that and now Trump 2 and I have looked at the diary on my shelf and considered writing about it, but I just can’t be fucked to.

One of the reasons why I decided to write in the diary in the first place was because I was mildly pissed off that the diary largely ignored the war and just focused on boring everyday logs. So when covid happened I thought it would be a brilliant opportunity to share a historical event in detail.

But at this point, I get it. I so fucking get, man. I look at the diary entries from the previous owner from the 40s and I fucking get why she preferred to write about girl scout outings and nothing else. You just want to escape reality at some point when every single day is a new nightmare in the news and you’re powerless to stop it.

I was at home. My boyfriend had gone to the store to buy toilet paper - I know, the irony - and he calls me and tells me everybody has gone insane and is buying a ton of toilet paper. He’s standing there with with his humble little pack of toilet rolls while people are tumbling pack after pack into their carts and acting frantic.

Took him half an hour to get through checkout. We spent the rest of our night watching the news.

I think there had been talks of lockdowns for a few days or so before that and we had all been kinda joking about it a little bit, but most of us didn’t really think it would happen until it did.

I still think it’s low key hilarious that my bf went to buy toilet paper and ended up in the toilet paper apocalypse for half an hour.

The Russia tactics again, I see. Do terrible war crime, blame others for not stopping you.

What a bunch of clowns.

Well, you get boring human writing instead:

“Inaction Man! There’s a seven story building burning with kids and kittens on the top floor!”

Inaction Man scratches his belly and pops another potato chip into his mouth.

“Have you considered calling the fire department instead of me? They are doing reruns of the Sopranos so I’m busy.”

How is he these days? I heard Oreo passed away at some point but I haven’t kept up with any of the TGWTG people in a few years.

A horror comedy.

I feel like it’s April 1st all over again.

Yes. I have known a few people who made a bit of fun of me for having kept the same phone for seven years and told me that they had had three or four phones within that time span and that I was silly for keeping the same phone for so long. What about the newest updates and cameras and gadgets or whatever they call it? Why would I put up with outdated tech? The phone I have right now is from 22 and it still works fine. I hope it will last me until 2032, longer if possible.

Oh for real. We sometimes buy a very cheap and shitty red wine and soak chicken thighs in it and cook them with spices and veggies. Also chopping up cauliflower and fry it with garlic and pepper and using the red wine sauce from the chicken to pour over it before serving. Fucking magic. It’s almost enough to make you forget that you’re a rat.

I’ll be 36 this year and I still live like I did when I was a student. I’m too worried about getting used to nice things and have been for the past 20 years that I simply just don’t spend money on anything other than food and bills and people around me tell me I should spoil myself more and go on more vacations and blah blah blah and I just want to scream at them xD

My life goal is to stay out of debt. You don’t stay out of debt if you constantly fly around the world and buy expensive shit you don’t need and replace your phone every three years or whatever I see some people do.

The good thing about my lifestyle is that when the next economic crisis hits, I am used to live like a rat so I don’t have to dial back too much compared to some people who treat their bankaccount like a Yolo slot machine.

I sure do miss rotisserie chicken, though. That’s one luxury I sadly got used to but whatever. Not the hardest thing to give up tbh and once in awhile you do get lucky that they are on sale to a reasonable price.

And yet we are the coddled, snowflake generation xD make it make sense. I feel worse for the younger generations, tbh. At least we got to spend our childhoods and teens relatively carefree, if a bit aimless and with the feeling of not being needed in society.

Young people and kids today are dealing with constant existential crisis. I guess the upside to that is that they won’t have to deal with this aimlessness that we dealt with, but maybe it’s better to feel aimless than to carry the future of our planet on your shoulders before the age of 10.

In the end, we are all dealing with the same problems right now and we can only do our best.

Indian guy on the left has one less finger on his left hand. Nazi in the middle lacks a finger, indan man’s right eye is a typical AI distortion, so are the eyes on the children in the last picture. The ear details on all characters are inconsistent and are either drawing in different styles or turns into AI-nonsense as in the case of the kids’ ears. There are tangent with the Jewish face and the buttons on the nazi’s uniform as well as tangents between the woman’s hair and the ICE-man’s uniform that are typical for AI-nonsense. The SS logo on the nazi’s uniform is AI-nonsense, as well as the emblem’s on his cap. It is supposed to be an eagle and a skull on his cap, but the skull is nonsense and the “eagle” has no head. An artist wouldn’t make that mistake.

Many of the mistakes in this comic are mistakes that you can only make if you have no understanding of what you are drawing. AI doesn’t understand that human hands have 5 fingers nor that eyes tend to have eyeballs on them. An artist doesn’t tend to change ear details on characters unless it is a deliberate design choice, which it clearly isn’t here as all characters are designed within the same style.

I know this because I am an artist. When I look at drawings other people made I can see the thought and design that went into them because as artists we have to understand what we see to draw it correctly. Someone at this level of skill would not make these careless and stupid mistakes.

Yes. Look at the nazi in the middle. He only has three fingers. Generally the anatomy is illogical in all three panels. Arms disappearing into nothing hands holding on to nothing eyes melting into nonsense on several characters. This wasn’t drawing by a human.

It is pretty ironic to me that someone is essentially trying to criticize the people who are currently ruining the world by using the very tech they developed to help them ruin the world. But whatever, I guess. It’s convenient and that outweighs artistic integrity, cultural integrity and care for the environment. Let’s just all mindlessly use these things that annihilates our planet at an even faster rate while the people whose hard work this glorified image generator steals from is being butchered and made worthless. It’s good for the culture to have it become soulless slop.

The fucking irony of them to then make an image that shows complicity and irresponsibility of the people who just did what everyone did at the time instead of resisting is a very funny meta layer that I don’t think they intended. I would rather they drew that meme themselves. Stick figures if they couldn’t draw. It doesn’t matter. The point would come across still, but no. They just had to go use a theft machine because why actually bother when you can just press a button? Why put effort into anything anymore? Why learn a craft when the AI can do all of that for you? Viva la revolución!

I think regulation is better than abolishing it.

With most initiatives that have been made in good faith to avoid bad actors, it will usually hit the little guy the hardest.

In my country, for example, you can apply for grants for your business for developing your business. Great right? Wrong. The bureaucracy is so crazy that small businesses, whom this grant was aimed towards, cannot feasibly take the grant. It is too expensive for them to go through all the steps to get the money for the developmental aspect of the business that they would lose money as a business and not be able to recoup their losses. The grant money are so small and aren’t allowed to be used to run the business at all that it simply isn’t worth it to even try. You would essentially have to work for free for days or weeks in some cases to get this tiny portion that will now sink your company instead of developing it.

However, a big business with many employees and time and money to spare, could easily apply for the grant and get it without a sweat, despite them not needing it at all.

That is how I’d see a potential ban of ads affect the market. The big businesses who got to benefit from ads and marketing in the past will continue to do well because people know them while any and all new start ups and smaller businesses would drown and go bankrupt due to them not being allowed to make people aware of their business.

It is a bit too utopic for my taste to suggest a ban. But regulation would be a good thing in my opinion.

But nuance is hard and demands empathy which is also hard. I want to be angry-mad and stomp my feet!

The problem is that the AI doesn’t understand cultural context. I dunno where you’re from so pardon me for assuming you’re likely an English speaker.

A good translation isn’t just to translate what the text says but to communicate the same idea to the reader or viewer within their cultural context. A good example is Disney’s Aladdin where Robin Williams improvised A LOT during the recording sessions and most of his jokes are full of contemporary American cultural context. I’m Danish and most Danish kids didn’t understand these American jokes so our translators decided to switch out some jokes with other jokes that conveyed similar points but within a Danish cultural context.

An AI cannot do that. It will translate what is written and it will be fucking nonsense to the receiver because they don’t understand the context or the references.

AI is only good at translating as long as what is written can be translated 1:1. And even then I sometimes wonder. Because as a Dane I have noticed how terrible Word is at Danish when it comes to corrections. It follows English language context and will underline correct words in red and suggest alternative that aren’t real Danish. For example, Danish words are slammed together while in English they are separated = skolelærer - school teacher. Word could very well decide to red line skolelærer and suggest to you that you should separate the word and make it two = skole lærer. But in Danish that would nullify the meaning. Now it is no longer a school teacher but a school and a teacher.

And I have seen on streaming services like Netflix and on steam how they lazily threw descriptions into a translator and it is just the most broken Danish I have ever read. It is so fucked because the newer generations of Danes who use these services are being influenced by them to learn incorrect Danish.

I have very limited trust in AI to do a better job at it since it isn’t Danish people that have trained it and it doesn’t understand our culture, our history nor how we communicate with one another. Everything that comes out of digital text based platforms from the US is our language filtered and massacred through US context. It is very very bad in my opinion and incredibly lifeless and soulless.

It would be the same the other way around btw. Me writing a piece of text with significant Danish cultural context and humor, slang and references would be translated into total nonsense for an English speaker, I’m sure.

This meme was made by a “know it all”.

Reminds me of how millennials and generations onward have learned less and less maintainence skills to the point where most of us can’t sow or fix shit if it’s broken because we grew up in a consumer culture where you just buy a new one when the old one breaks. The quality of products have decreased too so they break quicker which gives people incentive to buy a new one instead of fixing.

My parents generation hold on to old items and they patch up their clothes and know how to fix shit around the house but they didn’t teach me any of that because the culture shifted and it wasn’t really needed.

We are not only losing skills and tactile learning and understanding, we are also rapidly torpedoing out planet into a massive trash heap. Which is a bit of a duh, I know, but still.

I for one have noticed the insane decline in the quality of clothes after covid. It is shockingly shitty now and tears faster than ever. Shirts and leggings I bought ten years ago still hold up while similar shirts and leggings from a few years ago already tear or unravel. It is shocking. I guess this is what will eventually happen to art too.