I have no idea still why so many cultural critics and gatekeepers of photography are intent on walking this medium off another cliff with Generative AI as they already helped throw our current photo landscape into crisis starting ten years ago giving themselves over vicariously to Facebook/Instagram. All print magazines shuttered and websites and abandoned one of the most interesting and free vehicles, blogs. So many are complicit in this not for nefarious purposes but the neglect. Yet we could learn a lesson and not throw it off course yet again with embracing Generative AI. And you absolutely do not get to say Photoshop is the same thing nor dare compare it to collage or digital art. But this is not what has happened. Now there are institutions and classes and degrees and teachers happy to push this along. All in the name of 'look at this neat trick.'

It's maddening but so many people lap it up with thousands of likes and starry eyed comments (though I do enjoy when regular people in comments on Instagram push back) and 'it's just like when painters were upset about the invention of the camera?’ No this is devastating. And I'm not even talking about art here which it is devastating for, nor the environment which it is also devastating for, but even more important and this is a very important part of art is the caring about a semblance of the stability of society and people's collective well being. Is it "fun" to put a tool out into the universe that people can make fake photos and videos of people who didn't do the things that are in the images but no one can tell if it's real or not? Photography is really shattered and it's not because of this disastrous Generative AI tool and social media algorithms, but the people who are the heads of this medium embrace of all of it and demand little or no guardrails. With no second guessing of the disaster they have co-signed in the name of art.

(August 24, 2024) *just gotten worse

Lot of liberal 'FAFO!! 😂😂 MAGA 😎' messaging online is one of the worst things lately online. (Also I haven't formulated the words but feels sort of white supremacy seeing white people do that with Hispanic voters.) Too much moral posturing for those who voted for a candidate who was just as non committal into stopping genocide in Gaza as Biden was, and as much as I hate to say this whom was one upped by Trump (pretending for political points) showing more sympathy to the issue. Remember his saying how terrible it was Harris with the Cheneys. Remember how terrible and inexcusable and politically stupid that was of her? Trump is full of cruelty and shit talking but he was willing to go talk to people in Dearborn unlike Harris who would not even meet with members of Uncommitted. Had a staff give them a letter. Also Harris said that Trump had a point about immigration and she was going to be the one who was the "real" tough one and maybe his border wall was actually a good idea (!!!) 

These types of FAFO liberals should have a little more humility, not to excuse or coddle Trump supporters but you can't think that you are above making your own bargains politically. And people seem to forget this, but Trump explicitly and publicly backed away and denounced Project 2025, he did not run around preaching it like a sermon. It's important to remember you sound like those people who convinced themselves that a Covid lockdown happened under Biden and they were trapped in their homes for months, not able to freely go about. Now if one could read between the lines it was obvious Trump was going to do Project 2025, however oddly there was some leftists who thought that was liberal fear mongering. How mind boggling and stupid that was. Yet here we all are stuck with one another, with one anothers' blindspots, flaws, malpractices, messes, and lonelinesses. Anyway MAGA of TikTok type content and indulgence is not a path to go down.

You must see yourself as someone no greater than the cop or nazi who possess the lever of cruelty inside themselves that they finesse with regular practice. You just made different choices, you made different decisions to who you were going to be and followed that guiding path.