Everyone around me knows on some level that I absolutely hate AI. I’ve only used ChatGPT once in my life, and it was to gather sources for a project that was due the next day. I refuse to use generators in hopes of cartoonizing myself in a Studio Ghibli style. I can’t even laugh at Sora Jake Paul’s video making fun of him.
When my father boldly suggests that I should look into the AI market for a career, I happily bury my head in the sand. I would much rather walk over hot coals in the middle of nowhere, balancing a stack of Colleen Hoover books on my head. We cannot support what is harming the work of artists around the world, so-called “tools” that take away thousands of jobs needed by Americans in the face of economic crisis, and technology that destroys the environment at every water source.
Imagine my absolute horror when I fell down the rabbit hole of AI cat cheating at the beginning of the school year. The TikTok rabbit hole is (unfortunately) very common for me. The algorithm captures every search and every comment liked from one video to the next. As someone who hates AI, the first video probably never would have made it to my page.
For those of you who don’t know (I wish I were you!), this genre of AI video is widespread on TikTok, Instagram, and even short videos on YouTube. The videos always include cheating, but the prompts vary from model to model. What often happens is that housewives cheat on their husbands with rich men. Sometimes men choose to cheat and marry their mistress and abandon their children. Almost every video is set to an AI version of Rihanna’s “Diamonds” or Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For,” only with all the lyrics replaced with meow sounds. Seriously.
AI cannot think for itself, so each story always has a satisfying ending. A cheating wife is ruined when her ex-husband moves on and her current lover leaves. Jilt’s child grows up on the streets, becomes a police officer, and finally arrests his father. The small dopamine rush you get when the good guys win ensures that all victims get some form of justice.
These videos are really weird. Sound effects are common, with loud bombast and fake city sounds always present, even when the scene doesn’t require it. It looks like there’s always an American flag hanging in every frame (or the attempt is wrong). I’ve seen American flags on the streets of my city and all over my bedroom. These AI cats sometimes plant flags in cars and toilets. I don’t think there are that many flags in the White House.
The video also leans heavily into some awful stereotypes. The protagonist is usually a ginger or white cat, but often lacks some aspects of conventional beauty. For example, a common plot involves an oversized cat being tricked into giving himself an incentive to lose weight in the end. Seriously, I can’t believe that AI cats only become desirable when they’re thin. Also, although the main character is a light-hearted cat, the person she has an affair with is often a black cat or a different animal. The crook animal variations range from lions to leopards to gorillas. Now, I could be reading into it completely too much, but the overall disparagement of black cats in these videos leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Especially considering that black cats are never victims, they are always perpetrators.
All of the accounts creating this content have generic, bot-like names that are related to cats in some way. They also manage to have a huge number of followers. Meow Story Time has 342,900 followers and 4.6 million likes. Another channel, Zuoer Cats, has 299,000 followers and 2.8 million likes. The question arises: who is watching this?
Most of the views and likes are likely to be casual, as the AI works very well with any algorithm. However, casual viewers will not follow. The best-case scenario is that the majority of your followers are bots purchased by an AI trained to run your account. This explains why these videos either have emotional comment sections or no comments at all. I just hope many of these followers aren’t children.
Despite all the warnings about unrestricted internet access, it’s virtually unavoidable for children. AI slop relies heavily on instant gratification and endless scrolling, and it’s hard for even adults to break out of it. Think about children and their underdeveloped brains. I’m no scientist, but it seems to me that repeatedly viewing AI content like this is bad for the development of empathy and other life skills.
I don’t hate these stupid videos just for their lack of creativity and horrible environmental impact. I hate this AI slop and all other content like it because it erodes art and instills horrible stereotypes in sensitive minds.
My hope is that those who actively consume this content will also consume other real human media, whether it’s PBS or classic books. Everything I put my heart into.
Kate LaGatta is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at kal273@cornell.edu.
“Hater Friday” airs on Fridays and focuses on media and cultural criticism.
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