Intro

This chapter examines the explosive interest in creative AI, particularly focusing on the viral Studio Ghibli trend and its brief impact on social media. It discusses the similarities to past AI phenomena while contemplating cultural homogeneity and the transient character of online trends.

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Transcript

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Transcript

Episode notes

The Net Society crew is back and they open with the viral surge of Studio Ghibli-style image generation, tracing how creative tools and internet behavior fused to create a moment of mass prompting. From there, they zoom out to explore the flattening of culture and the eerie resemblance between AI media cycles and speculative assets. The conversation shifts to NFTs as potential memetic stores of value, asking whether blockchain can timestamp and preserve meaning in a world of aesthetic churn. They debate whether AI trends harm or help iconic IP, and whether tokens can offer fair compensation in a remix-heavy world. The crew contrasts longform storytelling with speculative markets, then rounds things out with a deep dive into meme fashion, fast manufacturing, and whether the future is 3D-printed, AI-enabled, and delivered straight to your door.

Mentioned in the episode

Studio Ghibli art style takes over timeline https://x.com/Zeneca/status/1904774204769411196

Stewart Brand Pace Layering https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/issue3-brand/release/2

Derek’s Squiggles across art history thread https://x.com/derekedws/status/1905023985903079523

Greg Isenberg tweet https://x.com/gregisenberg/status/1905409166232989715

The White House low EQ tweet https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1905332049021415862

Derek’s thoughts on CC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PjEAH2yr_A&t=1103s

Show & Hosts

Net Society: https://x.com/net__society

Derek Edwards: https://x.com/derekedws

Chris F: https://x.com/ChrisF_0x

Priyanka Desai: https://x.com/pridesai