Right-Wingers Heartbroken by Picture of Little Girl Who Doesn't Exist

[ck4829]

There has been no shortage of gut-wrenching photographs from communities in the southeast devastated by Hurricane Helene, which caused extreme flooding and killed at least 215 people — pictures of houses destroyed, families trapped on rooftops, wreckage from mudslides and roads washed out by torrential rains. But rather than focus on the actual victims or damage, many right-wing influencers and politicians have extended their sympathies to a nonexistent girl and her puppy (who is also not real).

The AI-generated image they’re sharing depicts a crying girl in a boat, seemingly alone except for the little dog she’s clutching. She wears a lifejacket and appears to be adrift on floodwaters caused by a major storm. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah posted the picture on X on Thursday, writing “Caption this photo,” apparently inviting his followers to vent their outrage at the Biden-Harris administration for allowing American children to suffer such misery on their watch. After users pointed out that he’d fallen for AI slop, he deleted the picture. (The image originated on the Trump web forum Patriots.win, where several users immediately recognized it as the product of an AI model.)

Others, however, have left the misleading picture up on their social media accounts — and some are defending it as an accurate representation of Helene’s effects even though it’s fake. Far-right conspiracy theorist and Donald Trump associate Laura Loomer called the image “sad,” quote-tweeting a post from Buzz Patterson, columnist for the conservative blog RedState, who wrote of the picture: “Our government has failed us again.” Neither have taken their posts down as of press time. Amy Kremer, RNC National Committeewoman for the Georgia GOP and co-founder of Women for Trump, tweeted on Thursday that the image had been “seared into my mind.”

Informed that she was not looking at an authentic photo, Kremer doubled down. “Y’all, I don’t know where this photo came from and honestly, it doesn’t matter,” she replied. “There are people going through much worse than what is shown in this pic. So I’m leaving it because it is emblematic of the trauma and pain people are living through right now.” A large anonymous blue-check account on X that routinely attacks Democrats did remove the picture but similarly argued: “Even though that image was AI, it spoke a truth about the disregard Harris and Biden have for ordinary Americans, as evidenced by their criminal non-response to Helene.” Another X user posted a screenshot of a more succinct response from an apparent family member advised that the image was bogus. “Who cares,” they answered.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/wingers-heartbroken-picture-little-girl-212703410.html

On that last paragraph...

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

[Bok_Tukalo]

1. Seriously?

The Polar Express had more realistic characters.

[DeepWinter]

2. AI is getting better and better.

In the not too distant future weeding it out will be difficult.

[andym]

3. Very telling that they don't care it's fake

same attitude they have toward much of what they believe to be true but isn't.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

8. This is where they're at...

JD Vance said he'd keep calling the Haitians in Springfield illegal.

Fuck them.

[Solly Mack]

4. The only thing emblematic here is their embrace of a lie. That their sense of self-worth is so fragile - because it is

based on lies - that they must continue to embrace and promote lies to protect that sense of self.

The need to perpetuate and nurture protective lies is emblematic of just how unstable their world is, the world they've invented in their minds, and what lengths they will go to in order to protect their shared delusions.

[CousinIT]

5. They don't give a damn about real ones. n/t

[duncang]

6. Even if it had been real.

A little girl who appears to be rescued while it’s still raining is supposed to be a bad thing? Are they trying to blame fema or the government for a hurricane?

There will be actual pictures of what happened showing up after the people have a chance to stop and catch a breath. I don’t know if there have been pictures of response teams staged prior to the hurricane. Maybe they should post some of them.

[central scrutinizer]

7. It should be painted on velvet

Looks like a big eyed orphan girl holding an empty bowl

[MineralMan]

9. Maybe someone can come up with an AI image of

Donald Trump in a Speedo rescuing her. They'd believe that, too.

[IjustDontlikeRepugs]

10. lol, make it anatomically accurate and they might not.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. The point is this COULD be true" is something people of all political stripes feel deeply

[ck4829]

12. This is true, there is a point where it goes too far though

[peggysue2]

13. That Arendt quote says it all

Exactly the world we're a-living at the moment.

Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.

Flood the zone with bullshit as Bannon would say. And the True Believers will eat it up with gusto.

[Metaphorical]

14. Images are already too realistic, videos are next

I've been following media generative AI tech for a few years now. The quality of generated images has reached a stage where they are, for a good artist, indistinguishable from a photograph at a visual level. Not that many people are really all that good with the tech (there is considerably more than just specifying a basic prompt to get to that point, but there are enough people that are good enough to create something that can readily fool most people. Video is running about a year behind - I figure we'll reach a stage where video will be sufficiently convincing by about the end of 2025 or early 2026 for most situations to fool people.

However, I think the point that was brought up earlier in the thread also needs to be examined. The people who are most likely to head off into MAGA-land are generally people who want to (indeed, have become conditioned to) believe a narrative. They do not really care whether there is any evidence to back up the narrative, because once you eliminate the need to have supporting evidence then people will believe whatever narrative you want to peddle, so long as that narrative fits their beliefs. That's what "faith" is. What Trump, like most effective dictators, has done, is to replace the dominant faith that some people have with his own narrative. You can point to most belief systems that have emerged in the last couple of centuries and trace it down to the co-option of a given narrative with another. This is why Trumpism is so pernicious - truth is whatever fits the narrative, not what is real.