308: The AI Slop Machine is Worse Than You Think [feat Mallory DeMille]

Summary

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Conspirituality – Episode 308: The AI Slop Machine is Worse Than You Think

Release Date: May 14, 2026
Hosts: Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker
Guest: Mallory DeMille

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Overview

This episode exposes and critiques the rise of AI-generated “slopfluencers”—fake social media personas who promote wellness products and supplements, often using racially and culturally charged avatars to bait users into buying dubious goods. Hosts Derek, Matthew, and Julian are joined by Mallory DeMille, who has conducted a deep dive into the AI influencer ecosystem, spotlighting the key players and the disturbing blend of racism, misogyny, tech opportunism, and deceptive marketing within this space. The team traces the entire pipeline: how the AI slop machine operates, who profits, why it's even more insidious than it first appeared, and the broader sociocultural implications.

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Key Points and Discussions

1. Introduction to the AI Slopfluencer Phenomenon

[02:02–03:41]

• Julian recalls their earlier coverage of mysterious AI-driven accounts promoting wellness supplements.
• Mallory found the real people—like Harry Chang—behind these scammy accounts, exposing them as intentional, lucrative operations.
• The show sets up the investigation: how these men create AI-generated influencers, monetize racial stereotypes, and drive millions in profit from supplements using affiliate marketing and viral content.

“The whole scam is so much worse than I imagined two months ago.” — Derek Barris [03:41]

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2. Step-by-Step: Anatomy of an AI Wellness Influencer

[04:38–09:19]

• Mallory describes stumbling on “Dr. Bella,” an AI-generated yoga influencer with 250K followers, “71 but looks 30,” selling soursop bitters. Bizarre, unrealistic scenarios (alligators on beaches, fake certificates, etc.) abound.
• Comment sections show real people falling for the ruse. When challenged, these accounts quickly disappear—but new, nearly identical ones pop up.
• Products like Serene Herbs’ soursop bitters and Rosabella moringa capsules are frequently hawked by these AI avatars.
• Julian gives a reality check: the supplements promoted are, at best, unproven and at worst outright dangerous (linked to serious neurotoxins and contamination).

"We've come to the conclusion that dumb has no bottom." — Derek Barris [04:53]

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3. Who’s Behind the Curtain?

[10:29–14:35]

• After much sleuthing, Mallory identifies Harry Chang as the ringleader. He openly boasts about using fake, AI-generated Black women, monks, and grandmas to sell millions in products.
• “Creators Corner” emerges as a nexus—a training community that teaches people to manufacture and monetize AI influencers for TikTok Shop and beyond.
• The community employs a classic “rags to riches” narrative: failed supplement founders find new success by churning slop content powered by racism and digital anonymity.

"This is how being racist is making me rich… this is not ethical." — Harry Chang [02:46]

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4. The Grift Playbook — Marketing Over Health

[15:34–17:14, 27:46–34:06]

• The AI content factory is showcased, including tutorials where Harry walks viewers through generating a “trustworthy” AI avatar in minutes, picking a racial/age/gender persona for maximum sales impact.
• Marketing pitch: avoid health talk entirely, focus on money, baiting curiosity, and exploiting viewers’ fears.
• Slopfluencers use hooks like “the secret herb doctors won’t tell you about” and center the message on urgency, exclusivity, and emotional manipulation.

“Supplements are merely a vehicle for making money. In all the clips we're running today, they don't mention health at all... Health is secondary at best.” — Derek Barris [16:08]

“You only need to know how to do three things… Bait the fuck out of people's curiosity, agitate them with negative emotion, and give them a reason to buy right now.” — Harry Chang [32:31]

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5. The Coaching Industrial Complex—Coaches Coaching Coaches

[18:19–26:35]

• “Creators Corner” and its influencers are revealed as a grift ecosystem: not just selling supplements, but selling tutorials and mentorships on how to run these grifts.
• Jimmy Farley and Luca Washenko (Rosabella) are major players, with staged YouTube and TikTok content glamorizing the “winner’s circle” lifestyle of AI affiliate marketers, complete with competitions and awards.
• The business model is self-reflexive: coaches sell the dream to aspiring coaches, echoing MLM dynamics.
• Key insight: the big money is made by the brands and organizers, while most participants (the “downline”) get little or nothing.

“No real guru worth their salt wants a little bit more of an ongoing relationship. But this guy just wants the click, right?” — Matthew Remski [36:34]

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6. Racial and Cultural Exploitation: Tech-Driven Minstrelsy

[47:48–55:50]

• Derek analyzes the execution and impact: white and Asian men using AI to create “Black” and “Othered” influencer personas, knowingly profiting from stereotypes while disassociating themselves from risk or accountability.
• This behavior is contextualized as a new version of old racial extraction—from blackface minstrelsy to white appropriation in jazz, rock, and beyond—as Black communities remain systematically excluded from the profits.
• The hosts express deep disturbance at the “frictionless and amoral space” of digital capitalism, where identity itself is commodified and weaponized for profit.

“When AI Slot, Fluencer Bros. steal and monetize images of black women, we already know who profits. Harry Chang has made that abundantly clear...” — Derek Barris [53:55]

“There are so many layers here. There's racism, misogyny, a disrespect for medicine, and the driver of it all, greed.” — Derek Barris [49:18]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On why people fall for such obvious fakes:
  “[Scammers] kind of make it absurd enough that the people who wouldn't fall for it anyway aren't going to fall for it, but the people who will definitely will.” — Mallory DeMille [05:54]

• Irony in marketing transparency:
  "It's almost refreshing… what he just said is the type of shit I'm pretty sure a lot of wellness influencers actually think when they're selling." — Derek Barris [34:18]

• Emotion behind ethical frustration:
  "I could be a lot richer if I didn't have any morals." — Mallory DeMille [56:06]

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Important Timestamps

• 02:02–04:38: Recap of last AI-fluencer episode, introduction to Harry Chang and the “slop” grift
• 04:38–08:15: Inside AI influencer accounts—Dr. Bella and the disappearing act
• 09:19–10:29: Dangers and recalls of slopfluencer supplements
• 10:29–14:35: Harry Chang reveals his system, Creator’s Corner origins
• 14:55–17:14: Racial and gendered avatars, detached from health–just marketing
• 18:19–26:35: The anatomy and economics of Creators Corner and its affiliate/MLM-meets-AI system
• 27:46–34:06: Step-by-step: How to set up slopfluencing, emotional triggers, maximizing profit
• 39:10–41:23: Supplement companies like Rosabella—how brands enable and profit
• 47:48–56:06: Racial exploitation, historic context, and the deeper sociological harm

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Key Takeaways

• AI influencers are being used to create and distribute wellness and supplement marketing schemes at scale, often employing AI-generated personas of underrepresented or stereotyped identities to maximize reach and sales.
• Ethical lines are flagrantly crossed: stealth racism, misogyny, and utter disregard for consumer health pervade the slopfluencer system.
• The “Creator’s Corner” network and others don’t just coach users to set up these scams—they run a “coaches coaching coaches” ecosystem, profiting most from teaching others how to perpetrate the grift.
• Marketing focuses on urgency, emotional pain points, and curiosity-bait, never actual health value.
• The episode contextualizes AI grifting as a tech-age reincarnation of racist economic extraction and cultural theft, with little-to-no recourse for accountability.
• The hosts express both cynicism and outrage, wrestling aloud with their own financial limitations working ethically while watching immoral behavior go rewarded.

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Concluding Reflection

The rapid growth of AI-generated influencer marketing is revealed to be even more problematic than previously thought—technically sophisticated grifting, exploiting identity, and disinformation, distilling every negative instinct of wellness marketing into a virtually untraceable digital slop machine. The team is left asking: is the public—especially the next generation—savvy enough to see and reject this manipulation? And can there ever be accountability in such an anonymous, frictionless, and amoral digital marketplace?

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Transcript

[Alex Goldman]

Hey, sweetie. Your mother showed me this Carvana thing

[Mallory Demille]

for selling the car.

[Alex Goldman]

I'm gonna give it a try.

[Mallory Demille]

Wish me luck.

[Alex Goldman]

Me again. I put in the license plate.

[Julian Walker]

It gave me an offer.

[Alex Goldman]

Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone.

[Julian Walker]

I'm holding a check anyway.

[Alex Goldman]

Carvana, give it a whirl.

[Mallory Demille]

Love ya. So good you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

[Alex Goldman]

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[Derek Barris]

Hey everyone, welcome to Conspirituality where we investigate the intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience and authoritarian extremism. I'm Derek Barris.

[Matthew Rumsky]

I'm Matthew Rumsky.

[Julian Walker]

I'm Julian Walker.

[Mallory Demille]

And I'm Mallory Demille.

[Derek Barris]

As always, you can find us on Instagram and Threads Inspirituality Pod as well as individually over on Blue Sky. Mallory, where can listeners find you?

[Mallory Demille]

I am also on Instagram and I recently joined YouTube as well for some longer form content so folks can find me there now too.

[Derek Barris]

And you can access all of our episodes ad free, plus our Monday bonus episodes on [e-mail] conspirituality our Monday bonus episodes are also available via Apple Subscriptions. As independent media creators, we really appreciate your support. Port

[Julian Walker]

Conspirituality 308 the AI slot machine is worse than you think. Two months ago we recorded episode 291. My Chinese Buddhist, Israeli AI guru surveying the growing field of AI slop fluencers churning out wellness supplements via Amazon affiliate links. At the time we weren't clear on who was behind these accounts. Then Mallory Demille went down a YouTube and TikTok rabbit hole and found the men making millions from these accounts. Today we're going to look at what they're doing, how they're doing it, and the cultural and racial dynamics at play in their slop.

[Harry Chang]

This is how being racist is making me rich. And no, this is not ethical. So I'm not suggesting you do this. This is only if you want to make a fuck ton of money. So step one, you're going to go to this website, generate an im, a black woman that looks like this. Step two, you want to go to this website and turn her into an AI influencer. Like this.

[Mallory Demille]

Follow Harry on Instagram, you ass.

[Harry Chang]

Step three, now you want to make an account on any social media and get her to promote a product. This is one of the videos I made with over 5 million views.

[Mallory Demille]

Did y' all see what this said? She's 71, but she looks like she's 30. Watch this.

[Matthew Rumsky]

What's the best way to clean your

[Mallory Demille]

liver after 30 years of eating junk food?

[Harry Chang]

Now look at the comments. Just got mine. 13.49. My auntie did this and she lived to be a hundred. I would like to order two bottles of this, please. Tell me how to get this. Brands are so desperate for you to promote their product that they will pay you 10, 20, 30k a month. I've used this myself to make over 60k a month.

[Derek Barris]

Oh, this is going to be a fun one. You just heard Harry Chang, the creator of many of the AI slot fluencers that we covered in episode 291. What we didn't know a few months ago and what Mallory discovered is that Harry's been doing it out in the open this entire time. He's not the only one, but appears to a main player in this story. Chang publishes longish 30, 40 minutes, sometimes YouTube tutorials showing you how to do it as well. While these videos have hundreds to low thousands of views, his accounts get millions of views and by his own claims makes him millions. And honestly, the whole scam is so much worse than I imagined two months ago. I'm going to get into young men exploiting racial dynamics for profit in segment three. But Mallory, go ahead, lead us down this rather perverse rabbit hole.

[Mallory Demille]

Are you sure, Derek? We've been texting back and forth about these accounts all year. Basically. This is so dumb. Have you seen this? And actually wait, I found something dumber. Check this out. And I've also covered some of these AI wellness influencers on my Instagram and

[Derek Barris]

we've come to the conclusion that dumb has no bottom.

[Mallory Demille]

No, but this will be pretty close. Earlier this year I stumbled across an account on Instagram with the handle rbelasecrets. 250,000 followers. Basically a Kate Beckinsale lookalike in some pretty strange situations. In one setting, she's being interviewed in a yoga or pilates class and all the Participants in the background are doing moves that I'm pretty sure aren't yoga or Pilates. In another, she's on the beach and there's like five alligators in the water behind her, hanging on to every word she's saying. And then in another, she's in a bikini at a pool party and everyone else behind her is acting very aie. In some clips, she's in her office and you can see certificates behind her. Certificates for what exactly? Who knows? She is made up, after all.

[Matthew Rumsky]

You know what I love about the AI stuff, though, is that you can ask it to do anything. Like you put yoga people in the background, the alligators in the background, something else in the background. They're all going to be sort of doing the same stuff, right? Or some approximation.

[Mallory Demille]

And some of them are pretty. They're not even trying to be believable. And it reminds me of. What's that scam technique where you kind of make it absurd enough that the people who wouldn't fall for it anyway aren't going to fall for it, but the people who will definitely will. Yeah, it reminds me of the one constant throughout this entire account and all of Dr. Bella's videos is that we're supposed to believe that despite looking much younger, she's actually 71 years old. And I guess that's the thing with these AI videos is you can make up whatever you want and there are people falling for this. And one of my favorite comments on her videos was, l still don't think you're 71 years old. So what's Dr. Bella's alleged secret to this youthful glow? Apparently a soursop bitters supplement from the company Serene Herbs. It was linked in her bio in pretty much every recaption, and it was often shown in the video.

[Julian Walker]

And I just have to say here, listeners, buyer beware. Not only are any health claims about soursop lacking in evidence, turns out the fruit also contains a neurotoxin called annonacin, which is linked to atypical parkinsonism and progressive supranuclear palsy in Caribbean populations who consume the fruit regularly. These are, to put it in English, neurodegenerative conditions. The toxin can also be more highly concentrated in bitters than it would be in the actual fruit itself.

[Mallory Demille]

Yeah, but is it natural?

[Julian Walker]

All natural.

[Mallory Demille]

All natural.

[Derek Barris]

Is it neurotoxic or is it a neuro cleanse? Because sometimes you're actually cleansing.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, you're getting rid of some of the neurons you don't need anymore.

[Mallory Demille]

That. Wow. That influencers be doing that lots, I guess. So, Dr. Bella, it appears her entire account was created and existed to sell these soursop bitters via an Amazon link in an effort to try and figure out this whole wellness AI supplement influencer sales funnel. And because I'm a curious motherfucker, I actually emailed Serene Herbs and asked who is Dr. Bella and is she supposed to be an affiliate of yours? Serene Herbs actually got back to me and said they did not know Dr. Bella and that she was not affiliated with them. And then almost immediately after Dr. Bella and her account, well, they disappeared forever, never to be seen again. My best guess is the company reported the account, but maybe they were also behind it.

[Derek Barris]

That's being very charitable.

[Mallory Demille]

I. Yeah, I mean I have no evidence of the counter, so. But shortly after I noticed more accounts popping up. Obviously with a different handle and a different AI character, but they were using an almost identical script as Dr. Bella. Now it was Mark and Frank claiming that the baby next to them was their grandson, not their son. And the trick to their youthfulness was. Yep, you guessed it. Serene Herbs soursop bitters. In addition to fake Dr. Bella and her bitters, I also did a video on an Amish looking grandma who was claiming to be 108 years old. Actually 108 is how she pronounced it. She was doing backflips, pull ups and playing volleyball and baseball in the barn and on the farm. None of these AI videos are really believable to me, but these ones were substantially less believable. But the comment sections of these videos actually prove that at least some people are falling for this. This digital Centurion was selling Rosabella Moringa supplements also through an Amazon link. Rosabella is a supplement company that is very popular with these AI wellness influencers and we will be revisiting them later

[Julian Walker]

in this episode and I will be revisiting my role as the as the fact checking bad guy. According to the fda, a batch of Rosabella Moringa capsules was recalled this past February due to potential salmonella contamination linked to a multi state outbreak of drug resistant infections. Which I would say is definite. Certainly not worth the risk for the weekly evidence blood sugar benefits that their marketing claims.

[Matthew Rumsky]

You know Mallory, I like that you said that the AI wellness influencers that these products are popular with them as if they're making the choice as if the actual avatars are going for the products. Also I just want to say that I'm all for inclusivity and trad clothes acceptance in workout culture. I think in a few decades there's going to be a huge market for, like, elderly millennials in tradwear who, like, love parkour in barn.

[Mallory Demille]

Yeah. Her particular dress also had a pocket appear as soon as she wanted to reach in and grab the supplements that was invisible until she had supplements to show you. So that one was kind of fun.

[Matthew Rumsky]

You know, the Amish, I think, are pretty tricky with the pockets.

[Mallory Demille]

It has pockets or does it?

[Matthew Rumsky]

Yeah.

[Mallory Demille]

So I kind of figured my curiosity around who or what was behind these accounts wouldn't be able to be satisfied, that it would remain a stupid mystery. But then I got a DM from a follower of mine, and the vital information they shared with me in that DM is the reason we're revisiting this topic here today.

[Harry Chang]

This woman right here is not real, but she made me $91,000 in profit across three months. And this couple right here, they're not real either, but they made me $4,000 in a single day in January. And over the past 12 months, I've sold $2 million worth of products with AI influencers. Okay. Working with some of the biggest companies and marketers in the world. And the reason this is even possible is because AI has reached a point where nobody can tell what's real anymore. These are all AI influences. And the people who figure this out are printing money behind the scenes. And over the next few minutes, I'm going to show you exactly how to do this for yourself. These are all the four tools that you need to do this, and you're going to learn how to use them to make your own influencer, to make money. Right now.

[Mallory Demille]

Right now.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, it's really funny. Yeah. Actually, we can tell the difference, Harry, but if we couldn't, being so upfront about deceptive AI marketing, sure does sound like you're saying it's a good thing if you can just completely fool everyone.

[Matthew Rumsky]

I also wanted to say before, it really feels like this guy deserves a penalty for illegal use of the New Zealand accent, which I associate with, like, chilling out, hanging out, and haka. And also, you know, most of the

[Derek Barris]

New Zealanders I know are, like, big

[Matthew Rumsky]

social justice people anyway. When you use it to scam people, it sounds super wrong to me. Something wrong with it.

[Derek Barris]

I actually have the opposite effect because I spent all that work on AG1. Chris Ashenden is New Zealander.

[Mallory Demille]

Oh.

[Derek Barris]

So the. The. The founder. So when I was doing, like, New York magazine and. And the podcast series on him, that's the voice in my head. And honestly, he sounds a lot like Harry, so.

[Matthew Rumsky]

And it's poison for you yes, Kiwis

[Derek Barris]

like send me some voice messages on Instagram so I can get a better association.

[Mallory Demille]

Well, once again, that's Harry Chang. And like I mentioned, thanks to a follower of mine, he's now on my radar. And if he's on my radar, well, well, he's going to be on your radar too. Especially because he's at least one of the missing puzzle pieces in this whole AI slop fluencer supplement nonsense. He has over 90,000 followers on Instagram and his bio reads learn AI influencer marketing 400 million plus views 2 million plus tracked revenue how I profit $61,000 per month with AI and then a pointing down emoji and then a link to his YouTube. The actual July 2025 post that this follower of mine sent me was from the Account Creators Corner, which we're going to get into. But let's just put a pin in this post gives us some insight into who Harry is and how he got his AI Slop supplement Shill Lord status. The COVID image reads, he made $61,000 in one month. Considering that's also the amount in his bio, there may be one payment or one month doing a lot of heavy lifting here in his marketing. The next slide reads, before joining CC again, Creator's Corner. We're going to get there. Before I joined cc, I had been trying to manage and create content for my own supplement brand. It was a nightmare and I lost all my money twice in the process. I was in constant fear I would have to go back to a job in the next slide where I'll note that there's also a photo of Harry smoking a cigar. The text reads. But then I joined CC in August 2024. I made more profit in the first month than running my brand and with 10 times less headache, I immediately ditched the supplement brand and I went all in on affiliate. Long story short, after five months I had already made my first $100,000 as an affiliate. It goes on, but that's the gist Harry commented on the post. Creator Creators Corner changed my life. So it seems like Harry, a failed supplement brand owner, finds or is found by a TikTok based user generated content training program. Whose idea is it to monetize racism that seems to still be up for grabs.

[Derek Barris]

Well, we're going to get into how Harry and friends do what they do and I want to talk more about young men monetizing AI generated black women. But suffice to say, as you heard in the first clip, Harry does not care. You heard that Clip a few moments ago, but let's hear how he responds to criticism of his creations accounts.

[Mallory Demille]

You need to unfollow immediately. Like 2.5 million of you don't even realize that this is AI. An AI influencer monk. Looks spiritual, sounds wise, feels calming. Except it's not a monk. The creator isn't even a monk. The creator isn't even Chinese.

[Harry Chang]

This chick is just mad that you can now be an ugly dude and still make money with social media. Me and my boys have been making AI influences for the past year and we've made hundreds of thousands of dollars doing. And no, not in the way you think. By making explicit content. We've been making monks, African grandmas, Asian grandmas, and companies pay us to sell their product. I made a step by step tutorial of how the monk makes $4,000 a day.

[Julian Walker]

You've been making all the stereotypes even as grandmas.

[Matthew Rumsky]

I want to ask you all, what does the Rhodes piano in the background say to you? There's kind of a real fuck you kind of, I don't know, easy jazz vibe behind the hard sell. It's sor. Works, but what do you guys think?

[Mallory Demille]

I think it's just like a trending thing on TikTok.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah.

[Matthew Rumsky]

Oh, he just, he just. He just. All right, it's. No, no big choice there.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's recommended to him before he posts, Right?

[Mallory Demille]

Yeah.

[Julian Walker]

And just like everything else, you want

[Mallory Demille]

it to be deep, but it's not. Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

What's most interesting to me about this approach and something we've touched upon in our text, Mallory, is how little these guys actually talk about health. Supplements are merely a vehicle for making money. In fact, in all the clips we're running today, they just don't mention health at all. I monitor their feeds as well, and sometimes they post workout videos or talk about their own health. But this is very different from any wellness influencer that we usually cover, who puts health front and center. And as a collective, we've long wondered how much each influencer actually believes in the health effects of the products that they shill. But in this case, we don't actually have to wonder. Health is secondary at best. It's all about the marks that they can con with their products. Which is sort of fitting, given how RFK Jr plans on further gutting any regulations around supplements. He's helped create the conditions for these slot fluencers to fly.

[Alex Goldman]

Hi, I'm Alex Goldman.

[Matthew Rumsky]

You may know me as the host

[Alex Goldman]

of Reply all, but I'm done with that. I'm doing something else now. I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed. On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems and I try to solve them. Some massive and life altering and some so miniscule it'll boggle your mind. No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you. That's Hyperfixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts [e-mail].

[Mallory Demille]

Have you ever wondered why we call

[Harry Chang]

French fries French fries?

[Matthew Rumsky]

Or why something is the greatest thing since sliced bread? There are answers to those questions.

[Mallory Demille]

Everything Everywhere Daily is a podcast for curious people who want to learn more

[Harry Chang]

about the world around them. Every day you'll learn something new about

[Mallory Demille]

things you never knew you didn't know.

[Matthew Rumsky]

Subjects include history, science, geography, mathematics, and culture.

[Harry Chang]

If you're a curious, curious person and want to learn more about the world

[Mallory Demille]

you live in, just subscribe to Everything

[Matthew Rumsky]

Everywhere Daily, wherever you cast your pod.

[Mallory Demille]

Listeners in addition to Harry Chang, I need to introduce you to Jimmy Farley. Apologies in advance. Jimmy's Personal Instagram has 57,000 followers, but we're actually going to look more closely at his company's Instagram account, Creators Corner. Told you we'd get there. Creators Corner has only 11,000 followers and its bio reads engineering the next generation of creators learn how to make make five to $10,000 per month as a creator. Book a call and then there's a link to their 2026 training where, interestingly enough, the copy reads Hundreds of brands are desperately looking for people who want to make a living from making simple TikToks. Here's how you can become their $15,000 per month solution. So right away, there's a lot of different numbers and financial claims being thrown around, but what I can glean is that Creators Corner coaches paying members on how to create content for TikTok shop, likely AI content. In a YouTube video on Jimmy's channel titled Inside the mind of a $300 million per year brand, He Bought my Company, Jimmy interviews a man named Logan from the comfort of a private jet. Jimmy describes Logan as a mentor and the founder of Physicians Choice, which is, you guessed it, another supplement company. Jimmy introduces him as a longtime client of his on the TikTok TikTok shop side, claiming that his creators have done over $20 million for his brand and the brand has done over $50 million on the tick Tock Shop, a private

[Derek Barris]

jet that was not in the air, by the way. So they they could have just, you know, rented it and also physician's choice. I just want to point out, like, how egregious of a name that is for a company, because you're implying that doctors choose your supplement, which is just garbage all the way. But I also want you to put a pin in what you just said about doing over 50 million on the TikTok shop, because I want to recall our Coaches Coaching coaches episode, which you were involved with Mar Mallory and we discussed the con coaching coaches. You teach people how to do something you likely don't actually do or actually don't profit as much. We talked about that a little in segment one. Of course, we don't have insights into all these influencers, but I certainly get some aspirational energy from these slot fluencer guys, just like we were with the life coaches. That said, they're certainly making something, some sort of financial return, and even $1 on the TikTok shop selling supplements is something worth investigating given what we're about to get into.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, the whole thing. I mean, this is how it seems like everything is trending in this meta direction. In this case, it's pseudoscience supplements meets deceptive social media marketing meets entrepreneur coaching on how to do those grifts yourself, which usually to me implies that the grifts are not making as much as you're saying, because if they were, what would your motivation be? To try and, you know, to put in all this effort to try and hook other people.

[Mallory Demille]

Yeah. Like, if you're so successful doing this, why aren't you just doing it?

[Julian Walker]

Relax.

[Mallory Demille]

Yeah, relax. Just have your freedom, your financial freedom. Why are you out here trying to get me to join? Yeah. So I think a part of the appeal with Creators Corner specifically is the community, but also the brand connections, because it's not just affiliate link commissions. It sounds like there's retainers from brands including Rosabella and Physician's Choice. Let's just say Harry and Jimmy. Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy. And the company they keep pretty much represent a lot of a slip there. Let's just say that the two of them and the company they keep represent a lot of what I hate about influencer culture and honestly, the Internet in general. So the thing with Creators Corner is they do seem to focus on affiliate links through TikTok shop. And as a Canadian, that's not something I have access to, so I don't even really know what it looks like. I haven't had the pleasure or displeasure of being able to scroll through it. And so I can't Speak to what it might feed me depending on my algorithm. That said, I can still look up and read the TikTok shop prohibited products policy where there is a section titled medicines, medical devices and medicinal supplements and

[Julian Walker]

that reads TikTok Shop prohibits the sale of medicines, certain medical devices and medicinal supplements at this time. Products include but are not limited to unlicensed medicines, herbal or homeopathic products, and those making health claims.

[Mallory Demille]

Interesting. Always the health claims thing. Either way, cruising through Jimmy's YouTube channel, you'll see titles like this $24,000 per month on TikTok Shop she started in October. How this 22 year old hit a $90,000 month with TikTok Shop, how this mom makes $150,000 per month plus on TikTok Shop and meet the 40 year old who made a million dollars as a TikTok Shop affiliate.

[Matthew Rumsky]

I have a question which is, are the, are the people being profiled here, are they the AI influencers or the people who have been sold the influencer programs?

[Mallory Demille]

It's the people who are creating content like. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure

[Matthew Rumsky]

we weren't talking about the avatars who were making the money. I'm getting confused here.

[Mallory Demille]

No, they're not interviewing the, the Amish 108 year old woman from her farm.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, but, but the point I hear you making, Valerie, is that these claims are about a business model that seems to be prohibited specifically, explicitly by TikTok shop itself.

[Mallory Demille]

Yeah, well, I mean like depending on what they're selling, like I really zeroed in on the supplements that they're affiliated with. But it sound Creators Corner is also involved with some other companies that may not be in the health and wellness space. And so I mean like that could be an entirely separate episode. But when it comes to health and wellness there are certainly some, but probably not all. But the clip that we're going to play from Jimmy's YouTube now is called the AI TikTok shop video made me 67,420. Here's how. And that's because it's with Harry Chang.

[Alex Goldman]

I am here with the number one AI creator in the world for organic marketing, Mr. Harry Chang. And today we're going to go behind the scenes and look at a video that made him over $67,000. Is he's going to remake it live for you just to show you how easy it is and how long you think.

[Harry Chang]

Less than 30 minutes.

[Alex Goldman]

All the exact softwares he uses, the exact thinking process behind his strategies and exactly the type of video that he posted that made him this money from his phone without ever having to show his face. Be completely anonymous in doing it from anywhere he wants in the world.

[Harry Chang]

That's right.

[Alex Goldman]

Pretty ridiculous. Let's see what it's about. But before we get into this, I know I hyped up Harry here, but let me do a proper intro here. Where are you from, how old are you and what got you into this? What were you doing before this?

[Harry Chang]

26 years old from New Zealand. Before CC, I was running my own econ brand. Failing. It was terrible. I was making my own content for it, joined cc, did a little bit of a talking head stuff but then got back into AI content and it's been upwards since then. The last five, six months made around $250,000 profit.

[Mallory Demille]

I also want to note, so this isn't something that I picked up on before, but listening to this, very similar to like the MLM dynamics and the coaches, coaching coaches is they play a lot into this rags to riches narrative. Also just basic marketing. I think of like before I was failing, I couldn't do anything and then I found this thing that I'm trying to get Utah to invest in and now I'm rich.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's very much just playing on like who are the people who are desperate who are failing in their career? I was too. And if you make change.

[Mallory Demille]

Yeah, definitely. So just, we'll just add that to the bucket of all those other similarities. But before we go any further, I want to make it very clear that there are actually a lot of people doing this and a lot of people sharing tutorials online. After watching a few of Harry's videos, my algorithm started serving me more. And when I'd watched those, the algorithm served me even more. And if you know me, you know I'm going to keep watching them. There seems to be an endless stream of people using these AI through and through systems for creating content where the ultimate goal is selling something. And it kind of seems like there's various ringleaders running their own management groups and then the students or members in these management groups then start their own groups. And I know we brought this up already and I've been on here talking about MLMs before and on my own channel. And while these AI slop fluencer groups aren't an MLM, I want to make that very clear. There do seem to be some obvious downlines and I think I'll just leave it at that.

[Matthew Rumsky]

It also means that it's a model that's got a Crash. Right. It's going to reach saturation very quickly. Probably already has. And. Yeah. What are we doing here?

[Mallory Demille]

Saturation, probably. And also, it doesn't sound like anyone's talking about this from a sustainability career perspective. It's like, quick, get in, make your buck, make your bag, and then just see how long it lasts.

[Matthew Rumsky]

We've got to have a sustainability AI influencer, actually, who. I don't know what she would look like or he would look like. I'll figure it out.

[Mallory Demille]

She would just take up a ton of water to make. That's all righty. Anyway, and watching this collaboration YouTube video where Jimmy calls, as you heard it, he calls him Harry, the number one AI creator in the world for organic marketing. Who came up with that? Who knows? Harry walks Jimmy and the audience through how you can generate this AI image, a script and a video for social media. He claims it takes less than 30 minutes and honestly, I believe him as someone who creates video content. It would be a lot faster if I didn't have to do any research, didn't have to write any scripts, didn't have to set up to film myself, didn't have to film myself and then didn't have to edit it all together. Here's a shorter video from Harry's Instagram that explains the process.

[Harry Chang]

This is the easy money male version of OnlyFans. It's just a little bit embarrassing. This is how much you can make in a single month. But you're gonna have to put yourself out there in a very uncomfortable way. First, you want to come to this website called Higgs Field and click this button up here that says image. That's going to allow you to create an image of anything you can think about. Like here's me with Sydney Sweeney. But for this example, I made this AI Monk, which looks really trustworthy, nice and realistic. Then this is really important. You want to go to this website called Heyen and go to their AI video generator. Then you can add your image in. Now you've created a super realistic video that sounds like this.

[Julian Walker]

My friend, the first few seconds after you wake up are more important than most people think.

[Harry Chang]

Now post this to any social media platform, even if it has zero followers. Now watch these videos go viral overnight. Like, my friend's doing this right now. He's only been posting for 40 days and he's already at 2.5 million followers. But here is where the real money is made, because real influencers are really expensive. Brands are begging for AI influencers to promote their products and they will pay you commission on every product you sell. I had one brand pay me over $200,000,000 in profit last year because I sold over a million dollars worth of their products with AI.

[Derek Barris]

I want to point out, it's very interesting, I didn't realize this until I was listening to this clip right now that what he's saying, there were engineers who were doing these within the tech communities a few years ago. So as these tools started appearing three, four years ago and the LLMs started taking off, it was up to people who knew about tech to figure out all of the software to make, to kind of cobble the pieces together. And then you had technology companies come around and start to like try to put them all together into one platform. But what Harry has done is he probably just found it somewhere along the game of telephone. And what he is, he's just purely a marketer. He's not a tech guy. So you're just finding like degradations of, of, of the educational process of how to make them and watching how it goes from whatever your thoughts on AI AI are, you're seeing people who, with, who are really into this tech for the tech itself then devolve into it just becoming a marketing tool. And I think that's something that has just repeated through technology, through generation after generation.

[Matthew Rumsky]

Well, you're, you're describing them as, what did you say? Marketers. But it also replicates the way in which people simply consume tech and social media. What he can do is he can go to this website and then that website and sort of string some content together in the same way that you would gather information about your world from a social platform or something like that. So there's some strange sort of merging of I'm just like you, I'm a consumer like you are, but I'm also turning my consumption into a profitable sort of enterprise. And this is as easy as it can be. And I'm going to show you how.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, and there's a little glitch in there too, because you can tell he's drawing from some background he has in marketing. There's a moment early on where he has a little non sequitur. He says you're going to have to put yourself out there in a really uncomfortable way. Nothing he's describing in the, in, in what follows is about putting yourself out there in a really uncomfortable way. But that's like, it's part of the library that he's accessing in terms of marketing bullshit.

[Matthew Rumsky]

Oh, he, he used that for some other pitch in the past.

[Mallory Demille]

Yeah, It' that you bring that up because I actually, well, I watched enough of Harry's videos to know this that the meat of that video where he's talking about the tutorial, that's the same but he's filmed a number of hooks to intro it with that are different and then he's just stitching them together just to see. It's all marketing, just to see what hooks, what picks up, what people pay attention to, what might go viral, something like that. But the seamlessness and the quickness of this process is all seen as actually a big win because it means that you can pump out more videos. This is also advantageous because my interest understanding is that these AI accounts often actually get taken down. And since this crew cares more about pumping as many videos about supplements out as possible instead of what they're actually sharing, is accurate in any way, I'm not surprised. We haven't heard a single thing about actual health or wellness yet. And spoiler alert, we're not actually really going to. Instead of discussing health, Harry discusses money and marketing angles that would likely be very familiar to actual real life wellness influencers. I'll let Harry give us his lesson on making sure your AI slop is super mandatory in order to maximize your profits.

[Harry Chang]

Why the fuck does nobody talk about how if you want to sell shit online and make money, you only need to know how to do three things which I'm going to tell you right now. And the third one is the most important, which non talks about. Okay, first of all, you need to bait the fuck out of people's curiosity. If you're selling a supplement, for example, okay, you don't say, oh, this is a supplement I take for my routine. No, you don't. You're not going to make any money that way. How you sell a supplement and bait people's curiosity is you say the best herb to take to reduce belly is not turmeric, it's not ginger, and it's not ashwagandha. Right? Destroy what anyone believed before they watched your video, the next thing. Number two, the second most important thing is you need to make them feel pain, fear, a negative emotion, a about their current situation because you need to inspire them to change it. All right? The reason you have that belly, the reason you wake up tired in the morning is not because of your age. It's not because you exercise too much or too little. It's something they don't tell you, okay? Agitate them, make them feel shit, because now you have the solution. Doesn't matter whether you're selling life insurance. Doesn't matter whether you're selling anything that you sell online. You got to make them feel a negative emotion because only you can bring them out of that negotiation. Negative emotion. Only you can do it. Okay. And now finally, when you go to picture a solution, whether it's whatever you're selling, okay, now you need to give them a reason to do it now to buy right now. This is what most people overlook. You need to inspire them to make and purchase it right now with their credit card. Okay? Not tomorrow, not add it to cart. You need to get them to buy it.

[Mallory Demille]

Sorry for making us listen to Harry so much, but did you hear that? It doesn't matter what you're selling. Anything you sell online, you have to make them feel a negative emotion and only you can bring them out of that negative emotion.

[Derek Barris]

You know, I have to say it's almost refreshing because what he just said is the type of that I'm pretty sure a lot of wellness influencers actually think when they're selling.

[Mallory Demille]

Yes, obviously.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, he's at least like, yeah, you, this is what we're doing. But the idea, even the idea that no one talks about it, what are you talking about? Like this is marketing 101, like fear based marketing. You just laid out something that's been known for a long time and maybe you're being blatant about it, but the idea that they. This isn't known, it's just he really, I, I think he really is aiming for the youngest possible generation because we've seen this over and over again.

[Mallory Demille]

Well, I think too with a lot of the wellness influencers that we covered that are real life people, them as people are a part of their brand and it's like building those parasocial relationships. And so if they were to give any insight into their marketing strategies, that would actually be bad for, for business. But because Harry isn't the person, there's no parasocial relationships. He's not an actual wellness influencer. He's just making pretend ones up. Then I think he's in this space where it's more allowed to show behind the curtains a little bit. Because also his audience isn't people buying supplements. His audience is people who want to make AI content. But like you said, the strategy of course isn't unique to Harry or these slopfluencers. I see this used daily by actual real life wellness influencers. They just don't really talk about it. Oh, you're feeling anxious and bloated. It's probably parasites. Everyone has them and the medical system is like hiding it from you. But don't worry, I have a parasite cleanse that I've created to help you. And will that be cash or credit or. Oh, you're not feeling well. It's probably because your friends and family are vaccinated and they're shedding spike proteins all over you. Yikes. But don't worry, I have a detox to help you. Just sign up for this membership, so you get the point.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. And this whole strategy, I mean, I've heard it talked about a lot as, quote, pain points. Right. You vividly PA the problem and then present yourself as the solution. And Matthew, this is also like right in the whole wheelhouse of cult indoctrination and guru positioning. Right, where you've described it as sort of scaring the hell out of people while simultaneously bonding with them as the savior figure who is the only answer to the terrible scenario you've painted for

[Matthew Rumsky]

a very, very brief time, for as long as it takes them to click. Because any real guru worth their salt wants a little bit more of an ongoing relationship. But I guess that's what the MLM is, right? Is that you keep the person in your downline, but this guy just wants the click, right?

[Mallory Demille]

Yeah. Harry shares a lot of information on how to get set up and started with creating AI influencers. But of course he is also selling something his AI Influencer Academy. Now Derek, you and I had a little bit on who would be the one to do the discovery call and figure out how much it was. And ultimately neither one of us hated ourselves enough to actually go through with it.

[Derek Barris]

Your tolerance for surfing has algorithms far exceeds mine. So it says a lot that you weren't willing to go through with it. I mean, you sat through a two hour workshop on using essential oils to stop wearing prescription glasses. I would have lost my shit.

[Mallory Demille]

I thought you were going to talk about the three hour urine therapy summit that I recently sat through.

[Derek Barris]

Oh, that one I took out of curiosity.

[Mallory Demille]

I love that one, which I covered on my YouTube. We'll plug YouTube once again right there. But it's interesting, Julian, that you bring up pain points, because up until half having to book a discovery call with someone for Harry's AI Influencer Academy, you do have to fill out a little survey that is asking questions basically about your pain points, like how much, how much are you making right now? How much time can you put in? How much do you want to make that kind of stuff? And you're basically offering up all this information to the person who's going to be on the other end of that call and how they can manipulate you. And so that's very common. You're right, Derek, I do have a high tolerance for watching that kind of stuff, but ultimately I didn't. Because whatever Harry's offering is going to be less interesting than Creators Corner, where Harry has been like a student or a mentee or just a paying participant. Some Reddit threads said the Creator's Corner has actually gotten pretty pricey. In my deep dive of Jimmy and Harry's content, I watched a 42 minute video on Jimmy's YouTube titled Inside a TikTok Shop Meetup with Million Dollar Creators. It was basically a vlog. It was only posted five months ago, interviewing Creator Corner members and talking about how much money they were making on TikTok shop. Thanks, creators Corner. But in addition to interviews with creators, they also interviewed brand sponsors at the event, including Rosabella. Told you we'd bring them back. If I'm understanding this interview and all the other research I did correctly. The guy who started Rosabella, Luca Washenko, is also the co founder of Creators Corner. He's buds with Jimmy. In fact, I think they're very good buds. And from behind his table filled with supplements at this meetup, here's what he had to say about Rosabella.

[Alex Goldman]

Read this I'm so strict on labels. Luca has shown shown up for the squad on this, right? When you can sell a product that you use every day, it's so easy and it's so fulfilling. And so why should creators go for Roosevelt specific? I think there's two things that I've realized. There's some people that want to get rich and there's some people that want to get great. And I think if you get rich, you can work with any brand, but if you get great, the riches will come along the way. So if you want to be the Tiger woods of a creator, you want to be the Caitlyn Clark, you want to be the Michael Phelps, you want the Golden Rings, and you want to be the greatest, to be the number one. That is what we're all about. That's why it's the Roosevelt family, because we're trying to get people to be the best version of themselves, to show up every day, to be consistent along the way. You'll make a ton of money. We also look back a year ago and you'd be like, wow, I don't even recognize the person I was because now I'm the person that I know I should have been from day one. And you make the products all to go viral like all to help make like holes in the market. Right. TikTok shop. You know what else? I think Roswell does really well in the era of brands being shitty to creators. Now I'm staying on time. You guys are really phenomenal with that.

[Mallory Demille]

I just hate it so much.

[Matthew Rumsky]

Aren't you convinced though? I mean that was such a good pitch.

[Julian Walker]

Greatness.

[Matthew Rumsky]

He was so specific. He used great metaphors. There was a great life story. I mean I got really inspiring. You were going what we were going to do with this material. It was like it was just so detailed.

[Julian Walker]

Aspirational athletes.

[Mallory Demille]

I just hate it. Once again it's all money and no health. Though I will note later in the video, Luca, the founder of Rosabella, he mentions starting the company from his mother's home where she was I guess navigating menopause symptoms and apparently he wanted to provide her a natural solution. Talked about getting off pills and stuff. Seems pretty sus when you look at Rosabella's website where what they're providing is described vaguely as with circulation support, whole body nutrition and everyday hydration, Rosabella's wellness stack helps support your body's daily needs from natural energy and healthy blood flow to recovery after physical activity. Asterisks. The asterisks at the end of course pointing to the FDA disclaimer at the bottom of the website. Typical. The meetup blog. Oh yeah.

[Matthew Rumsky]

Matthew, I'm sorry to interrupt again but like where does the word stack come from? Because we use that in other words sort of forms like isn't it a tech. Like a tech term?

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, in full stack just means that you can, you can have a suite of applications that provide everything you need for whatever your business application is. And I don't know where it got co opted or used with supplements but stacking became this idea of, of synergy of taking multiple different supplements to get to some sort of perceived health effect.

[Matthew Rumsky]

Awesome.

[Julian Walker]

So my sense of it is that it got imported into more sort of run of the mil supplement marketing from the bodybuilding world that in bodybuilding you're stacking different supplements with your. With your protein shake at specific moments to get maximum benefit out of your workouts. Tim Ferriss was, was early on when he first had the four hour body. He had a stack that you could come and order from his website that was like three different supplements that were the real ones you needed to really get your results.

[Mallory Demille]

Did he have 4 hour body in addition to what was the other one 4 hours. I also remember once upon a time when I was really into self help stuff, I read that book Atomic Habits and I'm pretty sure the author also talked about habit stacking. And so that's. Yeah, so like if you're gonna do one thing, you just do another thing on top of it. So it's basically like just combining a bunch of stuff all into one. They all get done together.

[Derek Barris]

And so yeah, all of these different industries have co opted language from tech. I don't know if it began there, But I remember 25 years ago, the spiritual community in New New York was just talking about downloading signals from the divine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, yeah, yeah.

[Julian Walker]

And all the physics, frequency misuse of like the concept of frequency and vibration.

[Mallory Demille]

Frequency stacking.

[Matthew Rumsky]

Yeah. I just feel like I have a stack of mental health issues. Like that's, that's what's stacked for me.

[Derek Barris]

Right.

[Matthew Rumsky]

Like I just have one thing on top of another.

[Mallory Demille]

So anyway, this 42 hour meetup vlog that I watched also included 42 hours section. 42 dives into 42 hours. It felt like 42 hours. This 42 apologies. 42 minute vlog that I watched included an entire section at the end for awards where our friend Harry won a trophy and a Rolex watch. This award was presented to him from Luca, AKA Rosabella.

[Alex Goldman]

There's one person in particular I want to shout out today. I cannot be any more proud to be working on a brand with you. And for that, I want to gift you this watch today. And honestly, I have to jump on what Lucas says. There's no one more deserving you. Really, you amaze me. You just continue to be an even better guy the more you do. And that's something that's rare.

[Harry Chang]

I appreciate both of you changed my life in so many ways. So shout out Rosella.

[Derek Barris]

Shout out. Just a reminder, this is to f. This is celebrating a dude who fucking makes slop online and robs people of money. Like, it's unbelievable. I'm sure that Rolex is probably from Canal street in New York. I mean, for who knows, they probably are making the money. I don't.

[Mallory Demille]

I think that there's actually a lot of money involved.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah.

[Mallory Demille]

So Harry joins Creators Corner. This is all me just like speculating. He joins Creators Corner. He creates soft fluencers that promote Rosabella supplements and they go viral and he makes him and the company a fuckton of money because people are actually falling for these videos. And then he's teaching more people how to do this. And if we're seeing more and more of these shitty AI accounts. It's probably because. Because there are more and more of them. And my understanding is that it's well known again, that these accounts get taken down. And we saw that with Dr. Bella from the start. So these people behind them are pumping out videos across a ton of accounts and so the Internet just gets inundated with this bullshit. In Harry's own Instagram videos, he will show screenshots of money transfers to his account from Ambrosia Brands llc, which is the parent company of Rosabella. I know these are easy to fake, but that' that's not totally my inclination here. I do think there's possibly some manipulation to exaggerate the ease and sustainability of making this much money, but I actually have very few doubts that people are making again, a fuck ton of money. Last minute, I actually asked my informant, the follower of mine, who first informed me of this crew, what the money actually looks like. They said, and I'm actually going to quote them directly. They want you to believe they make that per month when the reality is it fluctuates heavily. It's true that there's people that make huge amounts in one month though those claims. So those claims are real, but it's not per month. The algorithm pushed one or several videos. I remember we looked at it as a lottery ticket. You never truly know what's going to hit really. Only the top 1% make it consistently. The ones that are actually really winning consistently are the brands. Again, this isn't an mlm, but I'm getting heavy MLM vibes. Sell the dream that this works for everyone. Just follow the formula behind the this paywall. But it's Only the top 1% that are actually really thriving. In scripting this episode, I kept defaulting to calling people like Harry content creators. But as someone who would also describe myself as a content creator, that made me sick to my stomach. In my eyes, these people are not content creators. They're slop through and through, capitalizing on the same things that actual real life wellness influencers have been capitalizing on for a long time. And so. And so while this AI shit makes me feel a particular level of outrage, I keep coming back to how what they're ultimately doing isn't that different than what we've always been covering. Real influencers pave the way for these tactics. The only difference now is that the tactics are being deployed by anonymous shills instead of real ones. And when you're anonymous and can make yourself into whatever avatar you want. That introduces a whole new level of problematic.

[Matthew Rumsky]

You know, Mallory, I think you're describing something really important, that there's this maximum maximal alienation, but it's also doubled up because we're all, on this show, invested in the usefulness of what we do. And then we're watching, quote, unquote, creators who are not creating anything to sell products that they don't care about, right? So that they're not invested in the products and they're not doing anything to do the creation. And all of their attention is riding on the money. That's, like just so much harder for basically everybody else to come by.

[Derek Barris]

After the Voting Rights act was made nearly useless by the Supreme Court. Recently, I talked to a friend of the pod, Dax Devlon Ross, for a Substack Live. Dax and I were both columnists for the main newspaper at Rutgers in the mid-90s. We both took part in protests against the university president at the time, Fran Lawrence, for speaking favorably about the Bell Curve. We both lived in one of the most racially diverse college campuses in the nation at the time. And I asked him if he was surprised 30 years later to lose a keystone in the American civil rights movement, because there really was a moment in our little corner of history where things seem to be moving in the right direction, at least a little bit. He was surprised, but not entirely, given America's treatment of black people.

[Matthew Rumsky]

People.

[Derek Barris]

So when I come across two young men, one who's white and one a Kiwi of Asian descent, and they're laughing about generating AI black women to turn a profit, my stomach just drops. It turns. There are so many layers here. There's racism, misogyny, a disrespect for medicine, and the driver of it all, greed. I understand Chang is from New Zealand, and I'm going to be talking about cultural dynamics here in America, but he is creating black American women. So I feel it's fair game, especially since men monetizing the image, beliefs and bodies of black people is nothing new. I want to briefly consider this with a few examples from entertainment. The first monetized version of this was likely Jim Crow, the first blackface character created by Thomas Dartmouth Rice in 1830. His theatrical performances became an industry, and Rice himself became wealthy doing it. The economics were straightforward. White men stole black cultural expression and caricatured it into something palatable to sell to white audiences. This quote from Frederick Douglass sums it up well. In 1848, he described blackface performers as, quote, the filthy scum of white society who have stolen from us A complexion denied to them by nature in which to make money and pander to the corrupt taste of their fellow, of their white fellow citizens. It's hard for me not to feel similarly for Chang and his AI Slop business. And this trend never went away. We see it again as jazz emerged from the Creole and African American communities of New Orleans in the early 20th century. While some of the earliest music captured in vinyl comes from jazz along with gospel and classical music, the first jazz record released to the masses was from the self proclaimed original Dixie Land Jazz Band, which was a group made up of five white musicians. Some even claimed to have tamed the primitive rhythms of jazz to make it digestible for other white people. That's how you get Benny Goodman being called the King of Swing when everything he did was based on the actual swing created by black artists. Fast forward a few decades and Sun Records founder Sam Phillips told his assistant, if I could find a white man who made the Negro sound and in the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars. Then Phillips discovered Elvis Presley. Hound Dog was of course first written and recorded by Big Mama Thorton four years before Presley, and it remains the standard and by far superior version of that song. Presley's version sold 10 million copies. Thornton probably made a few hundred dollars for her son songwriting. Led Zeppelin did much the same to Willie Dixon, who sued the band in 1985 and they settled out of court. But it took Zeppelin until 1999 to include Dixon in the credits for that song. From everything I've read about Elvis, he had a genuine love and respect for black music. Ditto Robert Plant who collaborated with Central and North African artists for years following SE Zeppelin. I'm not really discussing the intention behind the creation of music as much as the structural asymmetry that resulted in economic and reputation reputational rewards. Brianna Joy Gray actually wrote about this exact topic in Current Affairs. She noted, the problem is not that white men play the blues, it's that white men who have played the blues have gotten rich from it, while the black people who invented the blues stayed poor. At the very least, incredible artists like Willie Dixon had some level of accountability. Honored might have been too little too late. The sum that Zeppelin paid was never disclosed. But it was something who's accountable? When AI Slot, Fluencer Bros. Steal and monetize images of black women, we already know who profits. Harry Chang has made that abundantly clear by all the clips that Mallory chose today. Over the last few weeks, Black Threads has been extremely loud with anger and frustration over the Voting Rights Act. And rightfully so. There's a few feeling that here we are again, beholden to a lack of concern in a white nation that does everything in its power to keep power away from us. Everything we create is stolen because we were stolen in the first place. And the cycle just keeps on repeating. And so to watch these ignorant, despicable young men laugh while earning money from the image of black women is one of the most deflating pictures that I've honestly seen in a while. Which is saying a lot given our state of the world. Like Dax's surprise, but not really surprise over the Voting Rights Act. I just hoped younger generations would do better and ensure. Generations are large cohorts with a lot of diverse opinions and ideas. There's a lot of amazing young people out there. I just hope the Harry Changs of the world would have disappeared by now, but they, they just seem to keep festering and infecting the body politic.

[Matthew Rumsky]

You know, Derek, I think they can multiply, multiply the Harry Changs in a kind of frictionless and amoral space of this commerce. One of the things that kind of strikes me about how Harry talks about sort of creating the avatars is that it really is kind of like choosing a particular skin in the lobby of a video game and then putting that into play right there isn't really that much of an attachment, no real sort of consideration of, of any of the cultural elements that we actually feel sort of committed to trying to understand at least. And so there's part of me that wonders just how transparent that will be to people who are younger than Harry, how transparent it will be that his whole sort of production is just sort of bad. And I just want to also say, I've mentioned this before, that my almost 10 year old sees something like this on YouTube and he calls me over and he says this is racist AI, isn't it? He's 10. Like he might be politically precocious. I wonder why. But I also think kids capacity to recognize and dismiss AI bullshit might be a lot higher than we would expect. So I'm not apologizing for anything here. I just wonder whether there's something about this that is going to be slippery and ephemeral.

[Derek Barris]

Well, you laughed when you said politically precocious, but yes, you are raising him so he, he's going to be tuned into that. I would hope that, I would hope all 10 year olds would have that sort of instruction for that sort of radar for this stuff, unfortunately. I just think, I just don't think that's the case.

[Mallory Demille]

Harry and his crew are yet another reminder that I could be a lot richer if I didn't have any morals. In building up this episode, I really had to parse out the emotions that were coming up for me. I'm 34. I want to buy a house someday. The city I live in is very expensive. I'm a working professional, but I am tied to a budget and like many, I do feel financial pressures when I look at my future. So seeing garbage humans make absolute bag while I sit here with my ethics is hard for me. And I think that's okay to admit. And at the end of the day, I'd rather be responsible for some good in the world than shilling absolute Swap. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility be stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.