The ephemeral emptiness of Trump’s A.I.-generated image machine
Plus: The MLB’s alternate City Connect uniforms bring old and new color palettes to baseball
The ephemeral emptiness of Trump’s A.I.-generated image machine
As the very real consequences of President Donald Trump’s policies begin piling up — from fewer container freight ships at America’s busiest port as his tariffs cripple imports to actual disagreements over the sovereignty of an American ally in the Oval Office — it’s interesting to note how much time Trump spent the past week talking about completely fake or edited pictures.
The rise of easily accessible, high quality artificially generated images seemed to signal the death of photographic truth as we know it, a sea change with terrifying political implications. Bad actors now had a tool to shape and reshape public discourse and the historical memory, manipulating the perception of reality itself with the right prompts. In the U.S. so far, though, Trump has mostly just used it for memes.
On Friday, the White House shared an apparently A.I.-created image of Trump as the Pope, and on the unofficial Star Wars-themed day of May 4th on Sunday, it shared another faked shot imagining Trump buff as an action hero with a red light saber. The pope picture upset Catholics while all good Jedi know red light sabers mean the Dark Side. Trump denied posting.
“I had nothing to do with it,” he said of the pope post Monday. “Somebody made up a picture of me dressed like the pope, and they put it out on the internet. That’s not me that did it, I have no idea where it came from — maybe it was A.I. But I have no idea where it came from.”
Trump has pleaded ignorance to controversial social media posts before, and his accounts’ embrace of A.I.-generated content is by now a well-known pillar of the administration’s social media strategy. In February, Trump shared an A.I.-generated video imagining Gaza as a Trump resort town, and in March, the White House X account posted a Ghiblified image of a woman in shackles being deported. Rather than using A.I.-generated content to lie or deceive, Trump and his team use it to troll.
In his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, media theorist Neil Postman noted how technology had changed the way Americans conceived of public figures. Before the era of mass media, public figures “were known largely by their written words, for example, not by their looks or even their oratory,” he wrote, and it’s likely most of the first 15 U.S. presidents would have gone unrecognized to the average citizen on the street at that time. That’s obviously not the case today.
“Think of Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter or Billy Graham, or even Albert Einstein and what will come to your mind is an image, a picture of a face,” Postman wrote, a sign of a culture that had shifted from word-centered to image-centered. Now, 40 years since his book, that could change again. When we think of public figures we still think of images, but unlike in Postman’s day, it’s not just real-life images we see on television, but images created by A.I.
The ultimate irony of Trump’s latest posts is the background to which they were posted. In his interview with ABC News’ Terry Moran last week, Trump seemed fooled by an edited photo of “MS13” he thought were real tattoos. Despite fears of A.I.’s potential to unleash mass disinformation, all it took was Google Docs-level editing skills to trick the president.
As a curator of his own image, Trump does the equivalent of take one good selfie and use it everywhere with his mugshot and assassination attempt photos, and he sometimes fakes the rest to present an image that’s larger than life. With A.I., that’s easier than ever to do. The thrice-married felon presents himself as godly as the pope, and though he avoided the draft, Trump never turns down an image that makes him look like Rambo. These aren’t depictions meant as outright lies, but memes meant to feed a public image.
Previously in Yello:
Will you take the Yello reader survey?
The MLB’s alternate City Connect uniforms bring old and new color palettes to baseball
Select Major League Baseball team uniforms this season are getting makeovers that embrace color in fun ways both familiar and new.
The MLB’s Nike City Connect jerseys are alternate uniforms designed to reference local history and culture. So far this season, seven teams have unveiled new uniforms, and for some teams, it’s a way to tap into nostalgia while others built brand new team color palettes.
The Washington Nationals pay homage to the work of the District’s designer, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, with a grid map pattern for their uniforms called “the District Blueprint.” The Nats’ curly W logo is set right in Navy Yard where Nationals Park is located, and there’s a pair of new logomarks, an interlocking “DC” mark made of blocky, athletic-style lettering, and a seal with the letter W made from an outline of the Capitol Dome and cherry blossoms for flourish.
The Arizona Diamondbacks are bringing back old team colors from its 1998 founding and 2001 World Series team, but in a new language for an alternative sub-brand. The D-backs will debut their purple-and-teal City Connect uniforms Friday that use an entirely new team name and logo. “Serpientes” — or “Snakes” in Spanish — is written in script rattlesnake type, and a new S snake logo is featured on the caps. The uniforms “represent a great sense of pride for our history,” D-backs CEO Derrick Hall said in a statement, and they’re also “a nod to our fans.”
The Colorado Rockies embedded the design of the Denver flag into the interior of the hat for their purple, blue, and Nerf orange uniforms, and the Miami Marlins are using a 1980s-inspired turquoise and pink Miami Vice color scheme for theirs. The Houston Astros are leaning into a space theme for their special-edition “Stros” jerseys that feature a NASA-inspired mission patch and lunar pattern trim.
In a first, the Chicago White Sox went Chicago Bulls with red and black pinstripes inspired by the basketball team. The league says it’s the first on-field jersey to combine elements of an MLB and NBA team, a creative way for a city to mash up two teams in one.
“One of the thoughts that was pushed right away was that no one has ever done a collaboration between a Major League Baseball team and an NBA team,” White Sox chief revenue and marketing officer Brooks Boyer said in a statement. “In a market like Chicago with a history of both teams, how great would it be to be able to collaborate with our partners in the Bulls, along with Nike and Fanatics, to do something that is unique and very different.”
The MLB launched City Connect with Nike in 2021 following Nike’s popular City Edition uniforms with the NBA. It’s been a bright spot in Nike’s rocky relationship with professional baseball that included widely criticized uniforms during MLB’s last season. With City Connect, though, the sports apparel brand puts the spotlight back on local communities and gives teams a creative sub-brand to play with and explore.
Have you seen this?
Bigger fonts and no trucks: How Lyft designed its new app for older riders. Lyft Silver is the ride-sharing company’s simplified service for older adults. [Fast Company]
There’s a new book of Shepard Fairey quotes. “Fairey-isms,” from the publisher No More Rulers, collects quotes from the street artist on topics from the arts and the nature of propaganda to why Barbara Kruger and Andy Warhol are his inspirations. [Obeygiant/Instagram]
You’ll never guess what Pence said at the JFK awards. Former Vice President Mike Pence went all gave-proof-through-the-night-that-our-flag-was-still-there Sunday during his acceptance speech for the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. Meanwhile back in Washington, his former boss is still figuring out basics of U.S. civics, but he’s at least internalized the 22nd Amendment about presidential term limits. [Whig]
History of political design
"Carry On with Roosevelt" banner (1940). This canvas banner was for FDR's unprecedented third campaign.
Like what you see? Subscribe for more: