“They gave their lives. You get 15% off patio furniture.”
— Wing
Memorial Day, 2023.
For some, it’s the quietest morning of the year. Flags at half-mast. Graves visited. Names whispered.
For others, it’s promo code: FREEDOM23.
Originally called Decoration Day, it started after the Civil War—families placing flowers on graves. It wasn’t fireworks and grilling. It was silence. Stillness. A long look at the cost of conflict.
“In 2020 we clapped from balconies. In 2023, they’re still wearing trash bags in some hospitals.”
— Wing
It’s May 2023. National Nurses Week again.
The hashtags are back. The HR newsletters. The “thank you” banners with softly lit group photos.
But if you talk to an actual nurse today—really talk to one—you’ll find something sharper beneath the surface: fatigue, anger, and the quiet ache of betrayal.
Remember those first weeks?
“In 2003 we set our IM status to ‘LOL FACE’ as a joke. In 2023, we created impossible AI pets and watched them go viral.”
— Wing
April Fool’s Day 2023 wasn’t just jokes—it was a showcase of how far generative AI had come, and how easily it could blur reality.
A prankster using AI art tools created a convincing New Zealand website advertising “Bungee Jumping Babies”—complete with photorealistic imagery and safety disclaimers. It felt authentic enough to make folks do a double-take :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}.
“In the 2000s we had green beer. In 2023, we had green leprechauns—manufactured.”
— Wing
March 17, 2023 wasn’t just about shamrocks and pints. It became a showcase of how generative AI can crank out absurdly convincing holiday art—and leave us wondering if we’re celebrating Ireland… or a neural network.
AI tools pumped out photorealistic leprechauns holding frothy beers and pots of gold. One standout popped up on Freepik and Dreamstime, with crisp 3D visuals of a thumb‑up leprechaun with beer and coins—so polished you’d swear it was a Pixar asset. :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}
“Back in the ’90s, we worried about catfishing on AOL. In 2023, the catfish has a perfect voice clone and video.”
— Wing
Valentine’s Day 2023 was weird.
Not because of flowers or bad chocolate. But because something darker was creeping through the wires.
Suddenly, everywhere you looked:
What should’ve been a day about connection… became one about doubt.
“In the early 2000s, we had watermark wars. In 2022, we had style laundering.”
— Wing
It’s December 2022.
You’re browsing Etsy, Gumroad, or even a local convention artist alley. There’s a print of a fox samurai under cherry blossoms. It’s striking. Detailed. Ethereal.
You buy it.
But hours later, something nags you.
Was that… AI-generated?
And if it was—shouldn’t they have told you?
By late 2022, generative AI art had become too good. Midjourney v4 and Stable Diffusion with custom models were cranking out pieces that mimicked human imperfections: rough brush textures, faux pencil strokes, even “digital signature” scribbles in corners.
“In the ‘90s, we worried about scanners stealing art. In 2022, the art stole itself.”
— Wing
The year was 2022. Stable Diffusion had just exploded onto GitHub. Midjourney was suddenly all over Twitter with ethereal, hyper-detailed portraits. And somewhere on ArtStation, someone posted their latest concept piece—only to be accused of using AI.
The war drums were starting to beat.
Professional and hobbyist artists alike raised alarms. It wasn’t the tech—they’d seen Photoshop evolve for decades. It wasn’t even automation—many used tools like Clip Studio’s perspective rulers or photo references without shame.
“Back in my day, we overclocked our Pentiums to run Quake faster. Now we’re doing it for language models.”
— Wing, mid-rant, 2022
In the year 2022, a new frontier opened up for hobbyists and developers alike: Large Language Models (LLMs) stopped being pure research tools and started becoming part of the daily build cycle for curious engineers and indie coders. But with that shift came a new dilemma—do you run your AI workloads locally, or pipe them out to the cloud?