Doug wants to be a filmmaker, he wants to make art, but he can't, because he's a fundamentally incurious person who isn't much interested in what other people think or feel and all his ideas boil down to 'what if Batman met Mario?'
- Folding Ideas, "The Nostalgia Critic and The Wall"
Dan Olsen deployed this scathing criticism of Doug Walker specifically to shine a light on a desire to create art while simultaneously (and consciously) refusing to engage with art.
And for the life of me, I cannot think of a better descriptor of AI art and those who promote it.
I see it like, wanting to be seen as a person who creates art, rather than wanting to create art.
In that way it echoes the self-selecting nature of NFT scams, the people we knew would pivot to "AI"
Every scam, at the end of the day, boils down to this: Why is someone selling you an opportunity to get (rich/famous/powerful) instead of just doing it themselves? And generative ML goobers and crypto weenies and MAGA dipshits and Musk fans and and and are all people who have convinced themselves that the answer is, "Everyone is stupid except me," which makes them perfect and very easy targets.
