A World Full of Pretty Things That Have No Meaning

The dystopian future of work and art

Here’s the original image/meme. We don’t know who generated this AI version first. But since AI-generated images can’t be copyrighted, anyone can use them without attribution.

I never understood why some folks follow beautiful people on social media.

I’m not talking about OnlyFans or Fansly models where there’s a clear financial transaction, or people who do interesting things and just happen to be attractive.

I mean those accounts where about 90% of their content consists simply of appealing videos or photos of themselves without any apparent attempt to sell products or services.

Unless you work in the beauty industry, I don’t see any real reason to follow them or continuously consume their content. In fact, I don’t see any reason to follow them at all, even for personal improvement, because they don’t even do makeup tutorials or creative fashion!

Yet, it’s easy to find accounts like this that get close to a million followers just because they’re pretty. Why? What’s the meaning behind it?

Yesterday, I finally understood.

Majority of people are satisfied with seeing and consuming pretty things. Even if it is meaningless beauty.

Last week, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT can now generate images. They originally released it for everyone’s use, including free users. But after it proved to be “more…