Make Believe Bonus: "Ghibli Style" AI (Newspicks)
You Wanted Less Control, Right?
It will not shock you to know that I was fascinated by the “Studio Ghibli style” AI meme-a-palooza that took over social media last week. All of a sudden, every platform I used — except Bluesky, which exists exclusively of Americans venting about the grim politics of the United States — was filled with people offering up anime-style pics of them or their families as if they were background characters in Howl’s Moving Castle. As goes the course of every meme, it was eventually embraced by no-swag brands and goober influencers, before going up a level with the likes of The White House and the Israel Defense Force busting it out. Finally, we had an ending point for this brief online phenomenon.
While most saw the future of AI and questions about artistic value / copyright law in this happening, I saw pure “cool, Japan!” intrigue. Newspicks allowed me to write about it, and that went up recently. As I do sometimes around these parts, I’ll share the English draft of this story for premium subscribers to Make Believe Melodies…seeing as you have to pay for Newspicks, seems fair. Not to be overly confident here but…I do think I at least had one of the more unique perspectives on this.
How does this relate to music? Well, scroll on down…and keep in mind that the main point of this story most certainly applies to music in the future too.