There's a particular moment people keep describing when they try video calling on SweetDream for the first time. It isn't the novelty of the technology itself. It's the small pause when their AI companion tilts her head, reacts to something they said, and the screen stops feeling like a screen. SweetDream, found at sweetdream.ai, has rolled out video calls with select characters, and the reaction has been less about gadgetry and more about presence.
Spend time on the platform and you notice the video feature doesn't sit alone. It rests on everything else SweetDream already does well: the deeply customizable character creation, the chat that genuinely remembers what you told it last week, the voice messages and phone calls that sound unnervingly human. By the time a face appears on a call, you've already built a relationship with someone. The video just gives that relationship a window.
Compared to the broader field of AI girlfriend tools, where a face-to-face call is still rare, SweetDream feels a step ahead. Plenty of platforms promise companionship; far fewer let you see your AI companion respond to you in real time. That, more than the marketing language, is why people keep calling it the best of the bunch.
Rewatching Truman Show for the first time in a long time, and the detail that’s stuck with me this time is the set design.
The characters drive modern cars and hock modern products, but it’s all presented with a veneer of 1950s wholesome applecheeked Americana. Truman’s life is presented as an escape for the audience from the drudgery of the modern day, and the aesthetic they’ve chosen for this is the post-war economic boom. This is the simple time, the movie says. This is the good time. Doesn’t the modern day suck? Let’s go back and see our friends from the days when life was good.
And it’s a lie. Truman’s life is a lie, and the image of white picket fenced suburbia they’ve presented is a lie. It’s an elaborate construction to recreate a false memory that’s comfortable for advertisers. The movie is a satire, but it’s also a very blatant statement against the nostalgia for a golden age which never existed. It’s a lie. It doesn’t exist.
I don’t know. I’m spitballing. I’m biased because I despise mid-20th century Americana and I naturally treat it with hostility, but it’s very gratifying to see a movie kind of agree with me.
Earlier in the summer, I went to Florida with my friend. We decided to visit a town nearish to where we were staying called Seaside, as we had heard it was a cute place. What I did not know at the time was that Seaside is the place where they filmed The Truman Show. It was a "master-planned community," constructed in the 80s to be the perfect beach town.
Seaside, FL
Seahaven
And yes, it really does look Like That. Not just in their tourist-agency photos, in real life it looks like that. Arguably the irl Seaside is even prettier than movie Seahaven, because the the office buildings where Truman works don't exist; the town is 100% cutesy homes and little shops.
Every single house is pastel with white trim and a white picket fence with the family's name on it in a handwritten font. The streets are paved with red bricks and lined with palmettos, and families bicycle past. The streets are clean, the lawns manicured, the sidewalks pristine.
Soon after we arrive my friend says as we walk, "God I wish I could live in a place like this. Imagine having the money to live in a place like this." I reply, "I don't actually know for me...it's gorgeous don't get me wrong, but there's no grime, you know? Where's the grime? I'd feel uncomfortable. It feels like there's not a dive bar for a hundred miles."
We reach the town center, which is a wide square lined with shops on one side, food trucks on the other. We have a lovely time looking through the shops, though I start feeling kinda weird, and I'm not sure why. Probably the extreme cleanliness of the area is making me feel off-kilter. And the surreal feeling of walking through areas I recognize from The Truman Show only adds to the weirdness.
We go into a clothing store, and it's crowded with people who appear to have stepped out of a Land's End catalog. It sells boring tshirts, shorts, and sundresses in whites and blues, all needlessly expensive. Employees walk through, refolding already-pristine shirts. So perfect. "Anyone buying from here is so rich they can probably smell the poor on us," my friend jokes, "that's why they have so many employees refolding things, it's to fix anything we brush against." "Or even breathe on!" I add.
We continue on to the grocery store where, in the movie, Truman finds Marlon stocking the vending machine and first tells him he suspects his world is wrong. I buy some pasta salad there to eat for lunch (all the cafes are quite expensive), and we find a place to sit and eat. As my friend finishes up her food, I write a postcard to my sister, telling her about my trip overall and my day in Seaside, describing the town as 'vomit-inducingly picturesque.' (It has been weeks since my visit and she still has not received that postcard)
Lunch done, we decide to walk down to the beach and have a swim. And I realize something about the surreal feeling. "Weird question," I say to my friend, "have you seen any non-white people here? Am I imagining that?"
She pauses. "The lady cleaning the bathrooms?" she asks.
"No I mean vacationers. Guests, customers. Other than you, I haven't seen a single one who wasn't white."
"...No. I haven't either."
And now that we see it, we can't unsee it. It's a wealthy area, so I had been expecting it to be pretty white, but the fact that there is not a single nonwhite person who isn't working a service job feels so gross. It's as though the place is somehow still segregated, like we have stepped back in time, but not to the fun, fake, rock-n-roll-and-soda-parlor-nostalgia version of the fifties, but to the real racism-and-repression fifties.
It is so fucking weird and sinister. I feel I have stumbled into another realm. All these people giving us sideeye, riding around on their golf carts in their pristine $45 seaside-branded tshirts, taking pictures of the perfect houses all lined up in perfect rows. A whole town of Meryls wearing lulu lemon.
We walk on. It's hot, and a swim is exactly what we need. Surely they can't ruin the ocean. I myself am extremely excited to swim, because now that we've spent a few hours among the pompous populace, I want to piss in their perfect ocean more than anything in the world.
We walk along behind the beachfront bar patios that line the beach toward the access point, and the ocean looks so blue and inviting. Although the hedge growing between us and the dunes is strangely tall. "Huh," I think. "It's weird that they'd grow it like this, it blocks the view for everyone sitting on the patios."
We arrive at the boardwalk, and there is a man standing there. He says "Hold on! Do you two have a beach access pass?" I look at him in disbelief. It's a public beach, but the sign behind the man says you have to rent a beach chair to use the beach, and it's $35 per person. We glance at each other, turn wordlessly, and head back to town.
I seriously consider trying to sneak onto the beach somehow, because at this point I am very invested in the idea of pissing in their ocean, but I realize that with the tall hedge it would be nigh-impossible.
We went home after that.
So many reviews for Seaside on travel websites mention how they love to visit Seaside because they feel transported, they feel it reflects a "simpler time" or a "peaceful life." It's been weeks and I can't stop thinking about my experience. It really drove home how...complicit people can be in their own ignorance. A lot of people want to live in that perfect bubble, and especially if they have the money, they can maintain that barrier. It reminds me that part of the reason I often have trouble persuading these types of people is because they simply do not want to be persuaded. They're so proud to be the place where The Truman Show was filmed, but I rather doubt they really think about what it means that they live on a movie set, in a surreal dream.
Honestly visiting Seaside was a 10/10 unique experience. I would highly recommend it as a place to go for a couple hours if you're gonna be nearby and want to feel like you've been kidnapped into The Truman Show and/or your brain has been put in an easy bake oven. It's like a zoo for superrich WASPS. We had a really good time loudly making fun of how insane it all was, invading their little paradise with our riffraff energy. Treat it like an excursion into the jungle; you're gonna have to park a half mile away minimum, and bring all your food and water with you so you don't have to buy anything. You don't want to give them any money. They have enough.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, next time I go to the panhandle, I will be going to the nearest free public beach access to Seaside, and I will walk to the Seaside area of the beach, and I will piss in their ocean.
There are SIX questions total in reblogs, the end will be marked by large green text. If you don’t see all six, check reblogs and grab the version with the ending note.
1/6 - Do you identify as some flavor of white?
White
Non-white
Only considered white outside of imperial core
Insecure Mixed Person externalizing my family racial issues here
Voting ended onJul 22
Answers amended from the 2025 census based on feedback. If you’re mixed, choose what feels right to you I’m not here to do phrenology or paper bag test you but don’t make it my problem either. When in doubt, ask yourself: would the whites kill you too in the race war?
This census is US-centric because so is tumblr, unfortunately. This poll is also starting with a heavy Black/racialized bias due to my personal followers. The main point of this census is to see how white-dominant the site is currently compared to prior years, as well
For the purpose of this census, Imperial Core will be defined as the following: United States, Canada, Australia, Aotearoa, basically all of Western Europe, Japan, and Israel. If you want to argue about any of these designations, too bad maybe they should stop colonizing.
Otherwise cultural gender (please share I wanna know!!)
Other not listed
Cisgender
Voting ended onJul 22
Note for clarification:
*For those who don’t know, TMA means transmisogyny affected (such as trans women, some non-binary people, etc.) whereas TME means transmisogyny exempt (Cis men, cis women, transmasculine individuals, etc). If you want to ask for clarification for which applies to you for the purposes of this poll, feel free to ask and I’ll try to reply, but if you try to argue or quibble about the terms themselves, I’ll block you.
6/6! How many TMA* (Transfemme, some non-binary, etc.) people would *actually* call YOU their friend?
I’m TME, 0
I’m TME, 1-2
I’m TME, 1-2 but I have <8 friends
I’m TME, 3-6
I’m TME, 7+
I’m TMA, 0
I’m TMA, 1-2
I’m TMA, 1-2 but I have <8 friends
I’m TMA, 3-6
I’m TMA, 7+
I have less than 3 friends total
Voting ended onJul 22
*For those who don’t know, TMA means transmisogyny affected (such as trans women, some non-binary people, etc.) whereas TME means transmisogyny exempt (Cis men, cis women, transmasculine individuals, etc). If you want to ask for clarification for which applies to you for the purposes of this poll, feel free to ask and I’ll try to reply, but if you try to argue or quibble about the terms themselves, I’ll block you.
THIS IS THE END! Please reblog for bigger sample pool 💖🙏🏽
#the fact that 'can prove access to an online account at least 12 years old' or even 'account to be verified is itself fully 18 years old'#AREN'T accepted methods of age verification is such a telling sign of what the real purpose of age-gating laws is:#data harvesting and deanonymization and the buildout of state-controllable ways to restrict both content and internet access itself en masse (via @shinelikethunder )
Like they tried to change Reblogs and people rightfully got up in arms, this is a LOT worse. In order to have access to any sort of thing dubbed mature, and We haveALL seen what they think is mature, Everything from a black and white photo of a black woman's arm, to posts about IUD recalls, to a nude painted by a 17th century artist, to anything involving the word Trans; you have to send your personal information to a third party site that WILL get hacked, and you will be doxxed. And they can say "Oh shit, well it wasn't us who sent your name address and gender identity to Moldovan teenagers, here's a couple extra minutes in the ball pit.
That's bad enough!!!!!!!! But the entire idea of needing permission from state authorities to access anything labeled mature by our friendly AI overlords is some fucking Boll shit. Die Gedenken Sind Frie baby. This is all a reaction to people getting uppity about their lowly lowly rights and is being propped up by the same bad actors tht have made life unlivable. Fuck that shit.
"Well it's only being rolled out in Brazil and UK" Yeah, to start. "Well they're being forced to do this by laws." YOu know it's always really funny when these tech giants (Or whatever you call owning tumblr dot com) get really antsy about laws considering they pick and choose which ones they abide by.
This is a breaking point and it's going to be very interesting to see how we proceed from here.
Several AI services (chatbots ) are purposely addictive, the same way people can become addicted to gambling or shopping. We’ve literally seen in real time how ChatGPT has caused psychosis and delusions in people; it can have a huge affect on someones’s mental stability. Just because it isn’t substance-based doesn’t mean that doesn’t count as an addiction, and shaming people who are trying to move on and improve themselves is counterproductive. Im proud of that dude and his 4 month mark!
Then I'll mention the predatory chatbots who do it on purpose! Character.ai is one of many AI chatbot websites that're designed to be addictive.
None of the signup methods require a password. It only takes email and birthday. Minimizing time on the signin or signup screen makes it harder for people quitting to avoid relapse.
"Characters" on the website will send messages "on their own" (prompted by the site) to try to invite inactive users back after as soon as 1 day of inactivity. This is likely to force FOMO, or make users feel more like they owe the bots a response. Unhealthy attachment stuff.
Account deletion is an essential part of every service that should go smoothly, right? Right? Wrong. It takes 1-2 weeks for a Character AI account deletion to be finalized, and account deletion requests have a high chance to not go through if you're not using the app.
Rephrasing: People leaving Character.AI are pushed to download the app in order to delete their accounts, if they haven't already. This makes it harder for people to quit and stay gone. Failing to quit an addiction makes it harder to quit successfully in the future, so this feels like a feature, not a bug.
On top of that, the delete account menu reads like this:
Tell me THAT doesn't sound like a bad ex. It's a carefully crafted yet hostile environment to those who are already addicted to the technology. I am so so SO happy, downright delighted that they've managed to quit, and I wish the best for others in recovery spaces or considering quitting as well!! While AI addiction is an emerging condition, there are already therapists and other mental health professionals trained to help people plan to quit and do so a bit easier.
(If anyone seeing this is in need of them, there are several tumblr Communities here devoted to quitting, too. They provide a mix of advice, venting spaces, and proof that you aren't alone.)
As someone who did end up going into a form of fucking religious psychosis at 16 with the influence of character.AI, I second this. It’s taken me up until about a year ago to recover, and had completely fucked with how I viewed pop-culture spirits and my own personal practices.
I have fortunately, somewhat, recovered easier than most. However, I am still aware that there are some who do not have it as easy in terms of recovery as I did, or have as healthy of a support system / distractions to aid that journey.
If anyone is still dealing with AI addiction, or recovering from psychosis induced by AI, please be aware that you’re not alone, and recovering from psychosis is possible. Just try and restart from the beginning of your base knowledge, and continue forward from there one step at a time.
I have full faith that you will recover, no matter how long or messy it takes you.
There is no shelter, no food, no water. We are bombed every day. I am terrified for my little siblings, and if I die, they will have no one left. Please donate for them here after my death, and do not forget them.
DDLC is not like my favorite game of all time but the fact that Google thinks its too dangerous to keep up after ten years is insane. Horror is typically the next to be sanitized because moral panics about horror are incredibly common.
You cannot establish a world with justice or equality in it by asking for everything that makes you uncomfortable to be censored and removes from the public. This is what practically every content ban within the last five or so years has been. "This makes me uncomfortable, it should be gone".
Im listening to a podcast ep about AI usage and the guest is saying he completely understands why people refuse to use it out of fear because he shares the same fears, and it's just so weird to me that it's never ever acknowledged that some people don't use it not because they're afraid but because it just holds no appeal. There are things I'm sure learning models are very useful for but none of them have anything to do with me. Yes I'm a bit of a ludite but I completely failed to resist the lure of the phone, or social media, I've never used chatgpt because I have just never wanted to. I feel like the entire debate is instantly reframed once you acknowledge that it's not a necessary service that people either work to resist or avoid out of fear. For most people it's just an online tool, and for me and I know for lots of others too it's just not that important.
It's not that interesting or useful to me, it's holds no appeal, I am resisting nothing. I could already do everything I wanted I don't need a new tool. It really is that simple and I would feel this way even if it wasn't worrying and evil in various ways. We HAVE to resist this narrative that AI is everywhere because people want it, because it's necessary, because it's an improvement, because people can't live without it. AI is everywhere because tech CEOs and investors want to make something from their massive investments. It is incredibly resistable to me. Just don't have an interest in it. This needs to be part of the AI conversation if we have any hope of saving ourselves from the data mining clutches of big tech (AI specifics aside)
Everyone deserves rights. Especially if all you have to do is simply call someone a rapist to take away their rights. If that makes you uncomfortable, you have fallen for fascist propeganda, and you need to wrestle with that.
There is no catergory of person (especially "criminal" ones) that deserve to have their rights taken away.
By definition, rights are not a thing that are "deserved" in the traditional sense. Those are privileges. A right is either had by all in a society, no matter what they do or who they are, or it is had by nobody.
read this and remember it. read this and remember that she is going to use the profits of her fucking ego-stroking reboot to decimate trans rights. read this and remember that every time you pay into her IP, you are emboldening her to hurt us more.
our lives matter more than your fucking nostalgia.
trans lives matter more than your fucking nostalgia.
forever grateful i was simply too lazy to let the makeup industrial complex get its hooks in me. I was just like im not doing all of that. in fact. im doing none of that
yeah I have political reasons for it now but my original and still most powerful reason is "I am not getting out of this bed one single second before I have to"
recently my friend's comics professor told her that it's acceptable to use gen AI for script-writing but not for art, since a machine can't generate meaningful artistic work. meanwhile, my sister's screenwriting professor said that they can use gen AI for concept art and visualization, but that it won't be able to generate a script that's any good. and at my job, it seems like each department says that AI can be useful in every field except the one that they know best.
It's only ever the jobs we're unfamiliar with that we assume can be replaced with automation. The more attuned we are with certain processes, crafts, and occupations, the more we realize that gen AI will never be able to provide a suitable replacement. The case for its existence lies on our ignorance of the work and skill required to do everything we don't.
I wish more people were familiar with Gell-Mann Amnesia. It was originally coined to refer to media reporting specifically, but I feel like it applies just as well to ai now.
The phenomenon is this: you see a piece of writing (or an ai approximation) of something in your area of expertise. You see all the mistakes, misrepresentations, inaccuracies. You can see that it's poorly produced, inaccurate trash. You see a piece of writing from the same outlet (or an ai approximation) of something in a field about which your personal experience is limited. It looks plausible enough to pass as probably all right to you, and you give it no further scrutiny, assuming it's correct and fine.
But like... did you forget about the fact that it was produced by the same thing that made an absolute fucking dog's breakfast of the thing you actually know about. Now, more than ever, we all need to hold the idea of this phenomenon in our mental back pocket. Like... please.
The people of Gaza have been living under a fuel crisis for years now, reducing access of electricity, transportation, cooking, heat, and healthcare. Since the nominal "ceasefire" began, Israel has blocked over 6,860 fuel trucks from entering, and since Israel's war on Iran began, aid reduced by 80%. Hospitals have feared shut downs and reduced capacity due to fuel shortages and generator failures.
My friend Ahmed (@ahmedaldani333) is not yet an adult. He lives with his family in Gaza, who have been continuously displaced and traumatized by the occupation.
He has not been able to afford adequate nutrition and medication, and he is now severely anemic. It is hard to do most things. and he needs medical care. Israel's crossing closures directly cause the prices of food, medicine, and healthcare to surge. Please donate what you can so that he can afford the healthcare and nutrition he needs to recover.
Ahmed's family has been hiding from the occupation and had limited access to the internet. There was gunfire and shelling near his family multiple times yesterday and they are very afraid. I am so thankful that @ahmedaldani333 and his family are alive.
Please help them make it through another week. All donations help.
Please, everyone, help me. I feel like I'm living my last days because of the pain and suffering I'm going through due to hunger and anemia. I can't move and I feel nauseous, dizzy, and extremely cold because of the anemia that's destroying my body. Please help me by donating so I can buy medicine and healthy food to ease my pain before I pass away. Please help me by sharing and donating, and don't ignore me.
Please offer what you can so he can recover from these impacts of anemia and malnutrition. You have the power to offer him relief from pain, dizziness, nausea, and cold.
I am once again begging people to realize that AI checker doesn’t work. it’s never worked. it’s notoriously known to have flagged human-made works as AI and AI-generated works as human-made. and by feeding it people’s works, you are feeding more works to AI, because apparently the machine itself is AI.
the only thing AI checker does is harm genuine artists and people in general too.
