Donald Trump is reposting AI slop on his Truth Social account and it’s gotten out of control quickly. On Sunday, the former president posted four screenshots of Trump-loving Taylor Swift fans from someone else’s X account. In one of the images an AI-generated image of Swift dressed as Uncle Sam points at the audience.
“Taylor wants YOU to VOTE for DONALD TRUMP,” the image reads, implying Swift has given Trump her endorsement. She has not.
“I accept!” Trump wrote above the photos.
Another of the posts Trump shared was of a collage of different AI generated pictures of pro-Trump swifties shared above a fake headline clearly marked “satire.” In another post, the AI-generated swifties stand alongside a very real pro-Trump Swiftie.
“Swifites for Trump” is not a large and powerful political movement but it is real. Swift is the most popular musician on the planet. She shells millions of albums in a world where people no longer buy albums. Her tours sell out across the planet and a filmed version of The Eras Tour was a box office smash.
Swifties are not a monoculture. The only thing they have in common is an abiding love of Swift’s music. When almost everyone on the planet is a fan, there’s going to be a weird political mix in the crowd. There are dozens of videos on TikTok of Swift fans declaring their love for Trump while lip-syncing over Mastermind and I Did Something Bad. There’s also hundreds of examples of Harris fans doing the same.
We’ll never know if Trump took the posts, which include a mix of AI-generated images and real photos, at face value. But we do know he’s been posting a lot of AI slop on his Truth Social account the last few weeks.
Anyone with older parents on Facebook has probably seen similar behavior. Whether of an idealized past that was never real or a non-existent dystopian present, there’s no bullshit image that they won’t post on main. Another popular theme is Kamala Harris hosting rallies in front of massive Soviet flags. One of the X accounts Trump promoted on Truth Social is also sharing AI-generated images of Harris as a Chinese-style communist.
AI generated slop is ubiquitous now. The pictures aren’t convincing and, so far, don’t seem to be massive vectors of disinformation. No one seems to be fooled by these things, they aren’t about convincing someone of something that isn’t true. Instead, this election cycle’s viral AI-generated images are about convincing the creator and the audience they’ve captured something about an imagined truth.
Pro-Trump folks want to live in a world where Swift has endorsed Trump and they use an AI-generator to make it happen. Against all evidence, they want to believe Harris is a wannabe communist dictator so they make images that reflect that reality. AI-image generators are just photoshop for people who can’t be bothered to learn photoshop.
Donald Trump Truth Social 11:58 PM EST 08/17/24 @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/8Bc5wdy8EC
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) August 18, 2024
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