i hate viral clip farms so bad its unreal i had to dig through so many of them to find the original source for those cars. i understand why reupload accounts with a gimmick or bit like the lodi one dont credit their images and videos even if i think they should, but the rest of them are literally just not doing it because its easier to not do it, and because they dont ever want anyone looking at any social media accounts other than theirs so will discourage that as much as is possible. on tumblr specifically we don't really have those types of aggregator accounts, our bread and butter there is aesthetic bloggers who just dont credit artists because they think it looks ugly to have any amount of text on their posts. it sucks.
i honestly dont even think the worst part of it is that people aren't getting credited for their work, i think the worst part of it is people are being robbed of the opportunity to understand and appreciate what they're actually seeing and go find more of it if they want to. to strip everything of its context makes it all ephemeral noise. it changes from something that meaningfully captures a small and intriguing snippet of the world you live in and just becomes Content. the way real life has been so structurally slopified like this has paved the way for everything people think is bad about ai. frankly i think if you won't share an AI image or video but will share unsourced or misleadingly framed viral clips you're just kind of a hypocrite because there is essentially zero difference in the outcome.
