Number Three and I are on our âsummer family horror festivalâ again. We said we were going to do monster movies but instead we seem to be on the social commentary circuit.
Our first movie was âI Saw the TV Glowâ, an allegory on the trans experience. It gutted me. This weekend we watched âUsâ, a commentary on privilege. It was creepy, especially when our dog started barking as if our tethered were in the driveway.
Three predicted the twist in âUsâ early on, catching the very first clue. Did you? What do you suggest we watch next?
#3 and I watched âI Saw the TV Glowâ last night. #3 said they could see it as metaphor for gender dysphoria, which is what the director intended it to be. It was, to me, incredibly bleak. Brilliant and deep and dark but I watch horror for the comfort it usually brings. It was not comforting and I am still all âdamnâ this morning.
âNobodyâs going to want to sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours to get from New York City to LA.â
Me. I will sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours. Iâll sit on it for days. Iâll write and read and nap and eat and then do it all over again. Iâll stare out the windows and see America from ground level and not have to drive. Iâll see the Rockies and the deserts and cornfields and the Mississippi River and your house and yours and yours too. Iâll make up stories in my head about the small towns I see as we go along. Iâll see the states Iâve yet to see because driving or flying there is a fucking slog and expensive to boot. Iâll enjoy the ride as much as the destination. And then Iâll do it all over again to come the fuck home.
I said weirdest not deepest! stop reblogging this w shit like âmy life falling apartâ and âintimacyâ and have fun!! be scared of figurines or something damn
I have been on a Willy Wonkified journey today and I need y'all to come with me
It started so innocently. Scrolling Google News I come across this article on Ars Technica:
Dull in-person warehouse for kids doesn't live up to technicolor AI-generated promo images.
At first glance I thought what happened was parents saw AI-generated images of an event their kids were at and became concerned, then realized it was fake. The reality? Oh so much better.
On Saturday, event organizers shut down a Glasgow-based "Willy's Chocolate Experience" after customers complained that the unofficial Wonka-inspired event, which took place in a sparsely decorated venue, did not match the lush AI-generated images listed on its official website.... According to Sky News, police were called to the event, and "advice was given."
Thing is, the people who paid to go were obviously not expecting exactly this:
But I can see how they'd be a bit pissed upon arriving to this:
It gets worse.
"Tempest, how could it possibly--"
source of this video that also includes this charming description:
Made up a villain called The Unknown â 'an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls'
There is already a meme.
Oh yes, the Wish.com Oompa Loompa:
Who has already done an interview!
As bad (and hilarious) as this all is, I got curious about the company that put on this event. Did they somehow overreach? Did the actors they hired back out at the last minute? (Or after they saw the script...) Oddly enough, it doesn't seem so!
Given what I found when poking around I'm legit surprised there was an event at all. Cuz this outfit seems to be 100% a scam.
The website for this specific event is here and it has many AI generated images on it, as stated. I don't think anyone who bought tickets looked very closely at these images, otherwise they might have been concerned about how much Catgacating their children would be exposed to.
Yes, Catgacating. You know, CATgacating!
I personally don't think anyone should serve exarserdray flavored lollipops in public spaces given how many people are allergic to it. And the sweet teats might not have been age appropriate.
Though the Twilight Tunnel looks pretty cool:
I'm not sure that Dim Tight Twdrding is safe. I've also been warned that Vivue Sounds are in that weird frequency range that makes you poop your pants upon hearing them.
Yes, Virginia, these folks used an AI image generator for everything on the website and used Chat GPT for some of the text! From the FAQ:
Q: I cannot go on the available days. Will you have more dates in the future?
A: Should there be capacity when you arrive, then you will be able to enter without any problems. In the event that this is not the case, we may ask you to wait a bit.
Fear not, for this question is asked again a few lines down and the answer makes more sense.
Curious about the events company behind this disaster, I took myself over to the homepage of House of Illuminati and I was not disappointed.
I would 100% trust these people to plan my wedding.
This abomination of a website is a badly edited WordPress blog filled with AI art and just enough blog posts to make the casual viewer think that it's a legit business for about 0.0004 seconds.
Their attention to detail is stunning, from how they left up the default first post every WP blog gets to how they didn't bother changing the name on several images, thus revealing where they came from. Like this one:
With the lovely and compact filename "DALL·E-2024-01-30-09.50.54-Imagine-a-scene-where-fantasy-and-reality-merge-seamlessly.-In-the-foreground-a-grand-interactive-gala-is-taking-place-filled-with-elegant-guests-i.png"
"Concept.png" came from the same AI generator that gets text almost, but not quiiiiiite right:
There are a suspicious number of .webp images in the uploads, which makes me think they either stole them from other sites where AI "art" was uploaded or they didn't want to pay for the hi-res versions of some and just grabbed the preview image.
The real fun came when I noticed this filename: Before-and-After-Eventologists-Transformation-Edgbaston-Cricket-Ground-1024x1024-1.jpg and decided to do a Google image search. Friends, you will be shocked to hear that the image in question, found on this post touting how they can transform a boring warehouse into a fun event space, was stolen from this actual event planner.
Even better, this weirdly grainy image?
From a post that claims to be about the preparations for a "Willy Wonka" experience (we'll get to this in a minute), is not only NOT an actual image of anyone preparing anything for Illuminati's event, it is stolen from a YouTube thumbnail that's been chopped to remove the name of the company that actually made this. Here's the video.
If you actually read the blog posts they're all copypasta or some AI generated crap. To the point where this seems like not a real business at all. There's very specific business information at the bottom, but nothing else seems real.
As I said, I'm kinda surprised they put on an event at all. This has, "And then they ran off with all our money!" written all over it. I'm perplexed.
And also wondering when the copyright lawyers are gonna start calling, because...
This post explicitly says they're putting together a "Willy Wonkaâs Chocolate Factory Experience" complete with golden tickets.
Somewhere along the line someone must have wised up, because the actual event was called "Willys Chocolate Experience" (note the lack of apostrophe) and the script they handed to the actors about 10 minutes before they were supposed to "perform" was about a "Willy McDuff" and his chocolate factory.
As I was going through this madness with friends in a chat, one pointed out that it took very little prompting to get the free Chat GPT to spit out an event description and such very similar to all this while avoiding copyrighted phrases. But he couldn't figure out where the McDuff came from since it wasn't the type of thing GPT would usually spit out...
Until he altered the prompt to include it would be happening in Glasgow, Scotland.
You cannot make this stuff up.
But truly, honestly, I do not even understand why they didn't take the money and run. Clearly this was all set up to be a scam. A lazy, AI generated scam.
Everything from the website to the event images to the copy to the "script" to the names of things was either stolen or AI generated (aka stolen). Hell, I'd be looking for some poor Japanese visitor wandering the streets of Glasgow, confused, after being jacked for his mascot costume.
My kids are never satisfied when they ask what I would do in a zombie apocalypse & I say, âI would die.â I have something survival skills but if these are Z Nation or Train to Busan zombies, I am done for because this body canât run. Just use me as a human shield & get out of here. What would you do?
imagine youâre a guard for your castle, and you see this lady calling for help and saying sheâs the queen, so you bring her in and everyone watches as she fucking eats the babies in there and just goes, âyep. Sure. New queen.â Because she got them, along with you, all high on psychedelics. And then she transforms into a giant fucking blue creature and crawls away, never to be seen again.
On a holiday morning, after being up for about an hour & a half, I have balanced the bankbook, started a load of laundry, unloaded the dishwasher & successfully bribed #3 into doing the vac unit, my brain yells at me:
We need to bring back private rail cars as the cool, sexy, exclusive way to travel, so instead of dumping the carbon budget of a small nation in the global south on private jets, celebrities have to attach their luxury pull an cars to the back of an Amtrak. Then the celebrities will lobby for Amtrak lines to be better
Seriously when did this
Become sexier than this
Like isn't it nice to watch the scenery, to be able to open a window and have fresh air, to be able to stand up all the way, not have your ears pop?
I think about my one friend in high school, who was not technically allowed to read anything that her parents didnât approve of. There was a special exception for things required by school, but theyâd go over those at home and âcorrectâ any bad information.
She checked out 2 books a day from the school library and read voraciously on her own and returning the books to the library at the end of the day. Sheâd get done work early or just skip any work time in class to read her books.
Her parents were âold-fashionedâ too. They didnât think their child should be reading anything they didnât personally approve of first.
There was a reason she never told her parents she checked out books from the school library. There was a reason none of the teachers scolded her for reading or told her parents about it during parent-teacher conferences.
They were actively preventing further abuse of a vulnerable teenager under their care.
I seem to be thinking a lot of her lately with everything, everything that is happening.
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