this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2025
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Political Memes

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[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 49 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 15 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

bezos with his new freaky looking wife that looks like lizard grinning.

[–] bcgm3@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago

She definitely gives Mileena vibes.

collapsed inline mediaMileena from Mortal Kombat

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 hours ago

Yeah the thoughts in 3 out of those 5 people all look quite different.

Musk looks like he just trying to hold in another hitler solute though for sure.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 35 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

There was probably an AI filter with the compression that makes this very real photo from a decade ago look like AI slop.

A reddit thread 9 years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/5mac9k/this_pic_of_paul_ryan_laughing_with_congressional/

[–] Windex007@lemmy.world 13 points 21 hours ago

Yeah, sure, but have you considered the feelings of the people who came here to just comment "AI slop"?

[–] wavebeam@lemmy.world 8 points 10 hours ago (4 children)

Count my opinion as however invalid you feel like after knowing that I'm one of those CRT screen lovers for retro video games, but I honestly think the AI smoothing look WAY WORSE than just the low res original. I don't know why people like it more? But i guess people also like that TV motion smoothing junk that's enabled by default on new TVs too.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 hours ago

No disagreement here. I'll take the .jpeg pixellation over AI filters anyday.

[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

I think it's good on small (phone) screens. The second I zoom in, yeah, the lines re sharp, but shit looks weird. Zoomed out, where the picture is like 3"x3" (7.6csq or some shit, I dunno, I mental.math'd it), it seems to pop. But I also hate designing anything for phone screens, because it inevitably makes the viewing on a larger screen with a tv-like aspect ratio terrible.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 hours ago

We are just old. I HATE tv smoothing, it looks like ass. I love crts and good flat screens but man that smoothing shit is awful. Also gaming on crt is peak for me.

Kids know nothing else.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 hours ago

It depends on which type of ai upscaling is being used.
Some are basically a neural net that understands how pixelation works with light, shadow, and color gradients and can work really well. They leave the original pixels intact, figure out the best guess for the gaps using traditional methods and then correct the guesses using feedback from the neural net.
Others are way closer to "generate me an image that looks exactly the same as this one but had three times the resolution". It uses a lot more information about how people look (in photos it was trained on) than just how light and structure interact.

The former is closer to how your brain works. Shadow and makeup can be separated because you (in the squishy level, not consciously) know shadows don't do that, and the light reflection hints at depth and so on.
The latter is more concerned with fixing "errors", which might involve changing the original image data if it brings the total error down, or it'll just make up things that aren't there because it's plausible.

Inferring detail tends to look nicer, because it's using information that's there to fil the gaps. Generating detail is just smearing in shit that fits and tweaking it until it passes a threshold of acceptability.
The first is more likely to be built into a phone camera to offset a smaller lens. The second is showing up a lot more to "make your pictures look better" by tweaking them to look like photos people like.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 hours ago

I think it mostly looks so good because this was taken at a bill summoning be a professional photographer with a big, fast lens and very good camera sensor, and decent lighting in that room. Possibly with a fill flash indirectly lighting too.

AI filters are only necessary when you are compromising one of the other ingredients, bad lighting lens or equipment primarily. Or a bad/lazy photographer.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 14 points 18 hours ago

Off with their heads!

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 10 points 12 hours ago

Many people commenting on the form (ai slop) but not on the message itself.

That may be because everyone is in agreement that is vile and disgusting, but it does detract from the message.

The similarity is that they are both festering ideas that nobody wants but at forced on us by a revolting class of hyper rich who are laughing their ass of whilst ruining the world.

[–] hopesdead@startrek.website 8 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Ironically, this looks like AI. Those people don’t look real.

[–] darkdemize@sh.itjust.works -4 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Because they aren't and you're right.

[–] moseschrute@lemmy.world 9 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Idk, I think that’s what Trumps cabinet looks like. Inhuman.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 7 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I think this is an image from the 2016 era. Is that Rand Paul on the front left?

[–] abrake@lemmy.world 13 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

I think it's Paul Ryan. And center-right looks like Steve Scalise. So this is almost definitely a pic from the first half of Trump's first term when Paul Ryan was still speaker of the house.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 3 points 21 hours ago

Ah yes that fucking guy

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago

It's just an ai upscale, actually. I really wish people wouldn't do that. It makes trying to find signal in the noise so much harder.

[–] formergijoe@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago

I find this image to be unrealistic. They'd be vigorously masturbating to this, not laughing.

[–] grimpy@lemmy.myserv.one 4 points 20 hours ago

Has kind of a Goodfellas vibe, no?

[–] darkdemize@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 day ago (8 children)
[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

which is odd considering plenty of real pics of "laughing politicians" (or even just people in suits that might look like politicians) exist to use.

[–] CubitOom@infosec.pub 6 points 1 day ago

No billionaire's were harmed in the making of this meme

[–] VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca 4 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 1 points 11 hours ago

Have you zoomed in a bit? I've seen some strange compression that gives an AI vibe before, but there's lots of little details to this that don't make a lot sense even in that case. Like the guy in the back with his finger in his mouth, the finger just seems to stop right at his upper lip instead of bending inwards, or on the chair, the patterns seem almost but not quite symmetrical in a way that really fancy chairs typically aren't made.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 26 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Nope, this one is real, just weird looking people and poorly upscaled.

News article from 2016: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/01/11/obamacare-repeal-republicans-president-obama-veto-health-column/78597014/

Original image:

collapsed inline media

Reference portion that was particularly mangled:

collapsed inline media

Mangled, but still recognizable as just .... Funny looking people.

collapsed inline media

Except for this guy:

collapsed inline media

He doesn't seem to have been mangled at all. Just looks real weird.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 6 points 18 hours ago

he has a face mask on.

[–] nachoWifi@lemmy.world 18 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Not everything is AI slop, I think you're overfitting. Paul Ryan Reuter 2016 Obamacare Repeal

[–] CubitOom@infosec.pub 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Dang you're right. I stole it from somewhere else and didn't bother to inspect it

Edit, apparently this is a real picture that got deep fried a bit.

[–] Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

That's the insidious nature of it eh, only so much time anyone has to inspect stuff, it passes the 10 foot squint, but this stuff is only going to get more believable in time

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

This is a real picture, you guys are already unable to tell the difference, apparently.

[–] Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 hours ago

These are some strange looking people then

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 14 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Wait isn’t this a real picture? I swear I’ve seen this before the clankers took over. That’s Paul Ryan, this is from like 10 years ago or something, isn’t it?

[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah it’s real. People are just overeager to call every picture “ai slop” even if it clearly just been filtered/enhanced.

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

I'd say "enhanced" counts as half slop.

[–] KingGordon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Dude in front has 37 knuckles.

[–] MakingWork@lemmy.ca 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)
[–] darkdemize@sh.itjust.works 8 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Assuming this is a serious question, zoom in on the face of the blonde woman on the right.

[–] Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 4 points 21 hours ago

And the guy behind her has his finger inexplicably lodged between his gums and upper lip

[–] grimpy@lemmy.myserv.one -5 points 20 hours ago

stop with the slop already