We Are Living in a ‘ChatGPT Flyer Pandemic’

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0:33No matter what your event is, no matter what your business is, your poster looks the same.

0:43Hello, and welcome to the 404 Media Podcast, where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist found the company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404media.co As well as bonus content every single week, subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. Get access to that content at 404media.co Also, do remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can watch all of our episodes and video. subscribe at youtube.com slash at 404media.co. I'm your host, Joseph. And with me are all of the 404 Media co-founders.

1:26The first being Sam Cole.

1:27Sam:Hello. Emmanuel Mayberg. Hello. And Jason Kepler. Hey, what's up? All right. Good to be back. We're going to jump straight into a story that I think everyone has seen in some sort of way. I was just on break and I saw examples myself and I was going to send them to you, but then I actually had my phone off. That was the entire point, but they were absolutely everywhere. Of course, I'm talking about chat GPT or AI generated posters of businesses being absolutely everywhere. The headline of this piece is we are living in a chat GPT flyer pandemic. Jason, you wrote this. We'll get into what these posters are for those people who don't really know.

2:12But like, when did you actually start noticing this was a thing? Because surely you'd seen them a ton, but then something clicked and you really started noticing all of these AI generator posters. Yeah, I think shamefully, I didn't notice them for a while. But I was walking around my house and I saw one of these easels that... A sidewalk sign that businesses put out on the sidewalk in front of their restaurant. And it was for surf lessons. And I could tell that the ocean was AI generated and everything was really generic. And then I realized at the bottom of the poster, there were all these generic icons that were like, fun waves, fun times, family, hang 10.

3:00And for some reason, that just clicked for me. This wasn't even that egregious. We'll talk about some of the examples of ChatGPT posters that we've seen over the last few weeks that readers and listeners have sent us. But this one was quite inoffensive as far as these things go. But for some reason, I was just like, that's AI. I know that's AI. And that was in the morning of some day that I was walking around. And I feel like by lunchtime, I had seen similar AI generated posters everywhere, just in my own neighborhood. And I was like, oh, my eyes are open to this now. I see them everywhere. Yeah.

3:42Once it clicks, you're like, oh, God, I can't stop seeing them everywhere. Sam, are you the same? Are you seeing them everywhere as well?

3:50Sam:Yeah, I am now. I saw it's like a local ice cream shop posted on Instagram, an AI flyer like this weekend. I was like, how are we still doing this? It is something that I started noticing about a year ago where people were using like stores were using that cartoony like comic strip sort of illustration style in their advertising. And I saw one. I think I texted you guys about it like when I saw it a year ago in Brooklyn. and it was like a guy in a oven and it was in front of like an appliance store and it said, get AC and stop cooking yourself. But he has like no, it's just like shoulders up. He's in a tiny oven or he's huge.

4:27Sam:No legs, no anything. He's just like sticking out of the oven, like cooking. I was like, this is bizarre and freaky and I don't like it. But you do have to keep seeing it over and over to clock it because you just see one instance of that and you're like, that's a weird illustration. and then you see the same exact style over and over and you're like, oh, that's AI. Yeah, it was similar with the Studio Ghibli stuff when that was big for a bit and then businesses started doing that as well. And that wasn't as sort of... Didn't have as long a tail as this. It seems like everybody's doing these posters for the comment strip stuff as well.

5:02Emanuel, are you seeing sort of these flyers everywhere as well? Yeah, it's one of those things where I wasn't thinking about it at all. And as soon as Jason pitched the headline, and was like, oh my god, he's so right. I have been seeing them everywhere. And I would say there's two places where you see them. One is actually online. It's businesses. I assume they also print them out, but I see them on Facebook. It's like a local store or a class or a studio or something. We'll share a flyer as a digital image on Facebook, which maybe is printed out or not. I don't know. I also see them around the city.

5:47It's a certain type of business that does it. I think, understandably, most of the time when we cover AI, we look at big corporations and how they're using it. I've looked at Panera ads before and wondered if they're using AI and stuff like that. But it is actually smaller mom and pop shops that are using this stuff. it's like not high-end places but kind of mid-tier low-end places that that that are just filling a niche that they i don't know used to draw by hand on a chalkboard or something yeah i mean like they're the ones that are going to get the most i guess financial benefit out of it you know they may not have the money for a graphic designer even to outsource it or fiverr or something like that i don't know they realize oh we can just use ai to quickly generate this flyer that's going to be great for business, but people don't like it, obviously.

6:43Jason, what's the reaction being not just from our readers and listeners who sent in examples, but people are talking about this online where they're saying, this sucks, please don't do this? Yeah. I mean, this is one of those things where I did notice this on my own. I was like, oh my god, this is crazy. And then I started seeing it. And then I was like, are other people talking about this? And one place that people are talking about this a lot is in the artists and graphic design community, obviously, because I think one, it's an example of their jobs being taken away. A lot of these people are freelancers or do gig work and they're maybe not getting as many commissions.

7:22And then the other thing is it's offensive to them. Just the The style of it is so in your face. It's like, if you've seen these, there's almost no white space or design sensibility on any of them. It's just almost all of these posters just assault your eyes with just stuff. And then another thing that's a dead giveaway, I think, and a big one is the font where it has really jagged edges. there's usually like a back brush stroke across them and it's like there's little like firework type things coming out of the text and it's just like really aggressive and and it reminds me a lot of like papyrus and impact and comic sans and these other like design memes that we've seen over you know the course of various decades but basically like there there's been a lot of designers on instagram being like don't do this um and and sort of saying like we are living in a chat GPT poster pandemic.

8:25That's actually not my framing. That was the framing of several different viral Instagrams that I linked to and show in the article. And it's become a major topic of conversation there. Just being like, this is lazy. If you are doing this, I'm not coming to your party. I'm not coming to your function. I'm not coming to your business. And then there's been examples of bars and music venues and things like this that take flyers from the community where they might have a bulletin board or maybe they post events on their Instagram or their Facebook or something like that. And a lot of these places have stopped taking flyers that are clearly AI generated.

9:08One, because it demonstrates a lack of effort in what it is that you're going to be doing. And I think some places are scared of having a Willy Wonka chocolate factory experience, which was like this party, I believe it was in Scotland or maybe Ireland. It was like a year and a half ago. And all of the promotional materials were AI generated, promising this really crazy Willy Wonka experience for kids. and then you show up and it's like a few plastic folding tables and it's just like the saddest thing you've ever seen and it's very similar like fire fest although the scale of it was like much less but i think that venues and and people are like scared of getting into a situation like that because with ai you can promise this like ridiculous magical experience at your event or your restaurant or whatever and then the actual like party is going to just be like shit you know Yeah, it was in Glasgow in February 2024.

10:16Sam sent an example of one of the posters to our group chat. And yeah, it's everything you said. There is no white space. It's almost like looking more at a menu than a poster. You know what I mean? Like a really horrible laminated menu inside a crappy restaurant or something. And it feels more like that. And do you know what prompts they're using? Are they doing an elaborate prompt where like, well, I need to give it the date and stuff? Presumably, right? I'm just wondering how it's making so much fucking information on this poster in response to a prompt. Yeah, it's really interesting because at first, I thought this was Canva, which is an online graphic design program that we use for some things and has become really popular.

11:08And I didn't actually realize it was ChatGPT for a while. There may be other AI tools. I'm not saying every single example is definitely ChatGPT, but the vast majority of them are ChatGPT from what I can tell. Because ChatGPT makes the same type of poster over and over and over again. And I tested this out a bit. I haven't seen so many videos or guides that are like, here's how to make a ChatGPT poster. But I think what's happening is literally people who are experimenting with ChatGPT, it's the most popular AI tool out there, are saying, I need to make an advertisement for my business, or I need to make a flyer for my business, or I want to make a poster or a sign for my business.

11:55And then if you ask ChatGPT that, it will say, Yes, of course, give me the following information. And then it will ask you, what's the name of your business? What do you want the logo to look like? What day is your party? If it's a party, what time is your party? All of this. And so I did that a few times just for fake parties where I was like, I'm going to have a 4th of July party at Jason's house. And you put your real address into ChatGPT. Of course. Yes. And I did that. And what it spit out on the other side was exactly one of these posters. And so I think what's happening basically is ChatGPT will guide you through the process.

12:37So that's why it's ending up looking so similar is because you'll say like, I want a professional poster for my business. And it will say, it will give you like a prompt back and it'll say, answer the following questions. And that's what's happening, I think. Yeah. How many... So you've seen your own examples, we've seen them as well, but then people, readers and listeners were sending them to you as well. Did you put a call out on Blue Sky or an email or something? Yeah, I did a few things. So one, for the last few weeks, I've been asking all of you guys to send me examples that you see. And I find it way more interesting when these are out in the real world versus posted on Facebook.

13:21Although I've seen some really wild ones on Facebook. But my own spotting interests are really big versions of it. So on billboards, on the facades of buildings, physical signs, I just find it to be... It's like they went through the extra effort to actually print them out and stuff like that. So in the email when we published this article, I said, If you've seen these, send me examples. And then when I posted it on Blue Sky and on X, I said, this is going to be a thread of the worst ChatGPT posters you've seen. And I got so many responses. I got hundreds of responses. And a lot of them are...

14:08I wouldn't say inoffensive, but they're just kind of all samey, where it's like, here's... We're doing a 4th of July event. There's tons of 4th of July ones done by either local bars. There were tons of World Cup ones. World Cup were the ones I saw, yeah. I saw a lot of them. But the ones that I really loved were when it was something offbeat or odd. Maybe we can show some of them on YouTube. We can flip through them. My favorite one is one called Belt to Ass Energy Drink. That was outside of a New York City bodega. And it's like, I don't know what the fuck this energy drink is, but it's insane.

14:54On the Venice Beach Boardwalk, I saw one that's just like viral snacks, exotic snacks by TikTok. And then it's just like so clearly AI generated. There was one for like endangered fish done by like a local government. there was this Arby's takeover one that I don't know if this one may have been a joke like uh but I did see it going around a lot but it's just like a mountain of meat and uh like Pikachu is on it it's just like it's a it's an assault on your senses we'll show it uh there's like a sushi taco one that's just like has a cat holding a bunch of sushi tacos um that are clearly fake there's one for a gay bear meetup in South Africa that has a quote from Paul McCarthy, which I think they meant Paul McCartney.

15:53Right. Unclear. Yeah, just like a lot of this type of thing.

15:57Sam:Paul's also not a bear. No. There's a lot of confusion. Let's fact check this. Right. A lot of confusion going on there. I mean, you touched on this, given the blowback in sort of the creative space in the artist communities and that sort of thing. But you did actually speak to someone at a creative design studio for some perspective, Jason. Like what did they say? It was a place in Toronto, right? Yeah. I thought that what they had to say was quite interesting and not something I had thought about where they were basically like, shitty graphic design has existed forever. Which I knew, of course.

16:32It's like you've seen really busy, poorly done graphic design all the time. I'm guilty of making it myself. but they saw this as kind of like the YouTube thumbnail vacation of real world where everything sort of starts looking the same and is trying to grab your attention in this very specific same way and I think that I think that small businesses and businesses in general have been trying to find out how to cut costs since forever. And if you're not an artistically inclined person, that has probably been through skimping on your graphic design and your flyers and things like that. So I mentioned earlier, templatized signs and graphic design is something that's been around forever where I'm just going to dump this into either Canva or MSP.

17:31paint or whatever. And that resulted in tons and tons of really weird posters and flyers. The difference is that when you had people doing that, it usually resulted in things that were uniquely bad. They were bad in an interesting way. That said, there were memes I mentioned earlier. There was a long time where businesses were using Comic Sans for everything or they were using papyrus font. Yoga studios were using papyrus font. I feel like a lot of Thai and Japanese restaurants were using papyrus font to imply that they were fancy in some way. And clip art. Clip art was like an aesthetic. Oh yeah, for sure.

18:19Yeah, and then of course, impact font from memes and stuff. And it's just like, you associate these design elements with either different types of businesses or different types of graphic design eras, I guess. But to me, I longed for those days. I don't know if I'm just a boomer about this, but I enjoy when things are bad in a unique and interesting way. And what we're seeing with these ChatGPT posters is that no matter what your event is, no matter what your business is, your poster looks the same Because it's being run through the same software using similar prompts and that sort of thing. So regardless of whether you're throwing a dance party or you have a restaurant or you're doing an ocean cleanup event, the graphic design ends up looking the same.

19:11And it kind of sucks. Exactly to this point, I'm sharing a tweet that I saw in Slack. and basically it is cycling through i don't know dozens hundreds of these posters and this person whose name on twitter is manny44 he's an artist i've talked to him for a previous story um when we were at vice a long time ago but he says counterpoint chat gpt flyers are the first original aesthetic of scene in years and it will be looked upon nostalgically in 10 years i thought that was a pretty interesting point i wonder what you think i don't like necessarily agree or like it but i will concede and i think jason this is kind of exactly what you were just saying where nostalgia has a way of transforming like the stinkiest herd into something you love.

20:14So I can imagine that being the case. Yeah, I mean, I saw that post as well and I think it's interesting. People have said this about AI Slop as well where they're like, AI Slop is actually very creative and it's creative in the following ways for the following reasons. And one of those reasons is because it creates something that's surreal or weird because of the a disconnect between what a human is asking for and what the AI is interpreting it as. And for some other reasons as well, such as you can make anything very quickly. And I guess I understand the argument. I do. And I think it's a position that someone could hold, but I don't really think...

21:02I don't think that we'll look back on this and be like, Like, wow, that was like the dawn of a boom of new advertising. And it was really good for small businesses and all of that. And I think one of the reasons for that, and I guess we should be very explicit here, it's like a lot of small businesses can't afford a graphic designer or don't have time to. It's like they're running really small margins. It's harder than ever for a small restaurant to succeed. And that's where we're seeing most of these. That's where most of these are coming from. Yeah. And so I don't want to... I'm not trying to specifically shit on any specific small business that doesn't understand the conversation that's happening on Blue Sky or Instagram or whatever.

21:50A lot of these are very offline businesses that are doing this. I think... One, I wanted to write about it because I just started seeing them everywhere. And also, I should note, this is not an American phenomenon. This is happening all over the world. people sent me examples from South Africa, from Japan, from the Middle East. I saw them in Europe when I was just in Europe, everywhere in all sorts of different languages. This is happening everywhere. But what's happening is people are having this visceral rejection of this sort of thing. And I think it's something where maybe small businesses are not going to know that unless they're quite online.

22:33it's hard to say how at scale the rejection of this is, but it is a big conversation that's happening and people are upset by it. And I think it's just worth acknowledging that as well. And then there's also been a move to just do it in MS Paint. Do a handwritten sign. If you do a handwritten sign with chicken scratch, that is more interesting and notable than a lot of the things that we're seeing now. Yeah. Do you think some businesses will realize it's potentially bad for them? But that said, you know, like, what, is somebody gonna go in to one of these stores and be like, hey, I'm not giving you my business because your flyer is chat GPT generated?

23:21I mean, some people might, but I don't know whether that divide is ever going to be crossed. You know what I mean? I guess we just have to wait and see if people actually, take their business elsewhere or something. Yeah, I mean, the theory that I've seen is that it won't hurt you so much in the short run, but maybe in the long term, you'll start to annoy your customers or customers will think like, this is really lazy. Or maybe it is something where it's just like, we'll all accept it. Posters will get better. Things like this will get integrated into things like Canva and other graphic design tools that where maybe there is more human involvement with some AI elements.

24:02I mean, AI is being shoved into every Adobe product, for example, and sort of where AI begins and where human development and art starts. And if you apply a filter to things, like, is that AI? Like, blah, blah, blah. That's an open question. I think maybe that's just where this will eventually go. And this is like the early days of people just typing this into ChatGPT and just using whatever pops out on the other side. Like maybe it will get better over time. I don't really know. But right now, they just look terrible, I think. I will note, if you're looking for optimism, injury and accident lawyers, I think, have not picked up generative AI yet in their ads.

24:47And they're like the vanguard of beautiful, shitty art. So maybe they know something. You know, Morgan & Morgan, Top Dog. Shout out. Shout out to Top Dog. Call Jacob. Ask Jacob. Yeah, they're not doing it. They're still doing bespoke, you know, shitty ads. And maybe that's a good sign. That's beautiful. You know, one font that will never, ever go out of style? Copperplate Gothic Bold. See that everywhere. Literally, whenever I see that font, I like nudge my friend to be like, that's Copperplate Gothic Bold. You know, we'll go past it. Great font. That's never going to go down the Papyrus or Comic Sans route.

25:27I didn't know this and now I'm looking at it. And you're right. I see this everywhere. It's classic. I don't like it. I don't like it. It's the font from Hitman, Emmanuel. From the early Hitman games. That's how I know it. That's nothing for me. We got to go back to Times New Roman. I used to say, we got to go back to that. Return to tradition. I feel people try to do that. Yeah, exactly. All right. We'll leave that there when we come back after the break. Waymo is snitching. We'll be right back after this.

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