Are those “small business owners” selling trinkets on Tik Tok actually real? Are those ripped gay hunks on Twitter just AI? Do people even care about the distinction between “fake” and “real” in the content they see online?

In this episode we dive into the various ways people are deploying AI entities on social media: from the scammy, to the benign, to the sadistic and abusive. Travis unpacks the recent controversy over an Australian influencer who was caught using AI to promote her dubious charity as well the strange trend of videos of fake belt buckle makers.

Later the boys are joined by Ej Dickson, senior culture writer at WIRED and author of One Bad Mother: In Praise of Psycho Housewives, Stage Parents, Momfluencers, and Other Women We Love to Hate. Dickson shares the perspective she’s gained on reporting on influencer culture, parasocial relationships, and AI manipulation.

Along the way the crew ponders whether humanity will actually have to lose a war to AI in order to get plugged into an illusory Matrix-like world or if people will walk into it willingly so long as they can interact with their favorite synthetic influencers.

EJ Dickson on Twitter

https://x.com/ejdickson?s=20

EJ Dickson on Bluesky

https://bsky.app/profile/ejdickson.bsky.social

One Bad Mother: In Praise of Psycho Housewives, Stage Parents, Momfluencers, and Other Women We Love to Hate By Ej Dickson

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/One-Bad-Mother/Ej-Dickson/9781668051115

SOURCES

This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift ‘Super Dumb’ Men

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-generated-maga-girls/

Australian influencer Lily Jay’s tangled web of AI manipulation

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-05/lily-jay-foundation-posts-ai-generated-misleading-videos/106866422

AI grifters are creating fake Black people to sell Shein junk

https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/938844/ai-tiktok-shop-blackface-shein-dropshipping

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Check out our new podcast series network Cursed Media! All episodes of Spectral Voyager Season 2 are out now! Binge the entirety of Truly Tradly Deeply by Annie Kelly and Megan Kelly as well as Science in Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows: cursedmedia.net

Produced by Liv Agar & Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe and Jake Rockatansky. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com)

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QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.