Over the weekend, a photo of Pope Francis looking dapper in a white puffer jacket went viral on social media. The 86-year-old seated pope appears to be suffering from some serious cataplexy. But there was just one problem: the photo wasn’t real. Created with Midjourney’s artificial intelligence technical tool.

As word spread across the internet that the image was created by artificial intelligence, many expressed their surprise. “I thought the pope’s puffer jacket was real and never thought about it again,” Chrissy Teigen chirp. “No way can I escape the future of technology.” Garbage Day newsletter writer and former BuzzFeed News correspondent Ryan Broderick invited him “The first real mass-level AI misinformation case,” it follows in the aftermath Fake photos of the arrest of Donald Trump by police in New York last week.

Now, for the first time, the image’s creator has shared the story of how he created the image that fooled the world.

Pablo Xavier, a 31-year-old construction worker from the Chicago area who declined to give his last name due to fears he would be attacked for taking the photos, said he was stumbling through dorm rooms last week when he came up with the idea for the photo.

“I try to figure out ways to make something funny because that’s what I usually try to do,” he told BuzzFeed News. “I try to do funny things or tripartite-psychedelic things. It just dawned on me: I have to do the Pope. Then it came like water: “The Pope in a fluffy Balenciaga coat, Moncler, walking the streets of Rome, Paris, things like that.”

He generated the first three images at around 2pm local time last Friday. (He first started using Midjourney after the death of one of his brothers in November. “It almost all started, just dealing with grief and taking pictures of my ex,” he said. “I fell in love with her after that.”)

When Pablo Xavier first saw the Pope’s photos, he said, “I thought they were perfect.” So he sent it to a Facebook group called AI Art Universe, and then on Reddit. He was shocked when the photos went viral. He said, “I didn’t want it to explode like that.”

Athletes love lives It’s been basically a national obsession for as long as we’ve had professional athletes: Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio’s relationship, for example, was big news in the 1950s. Then and for a long time after that, our attention was usually riveted to pairs like this where a high-profile celeb committed to sporting an icon and their combined star power made it impossible to look away.

Then came a file 2006 World Cup, which has taken the England team to the sleepy spa town of Baden-Baden, Germany. This was a year after it appeared TMZIn the booming days of America’s toxic preoccupation with party girls like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton – media companies are beginning to understand what they can do online with celebrity gossip. The 24/7 news cycle was thirsty to hate and hate women in equal measure, and found them ready in the wives and girlfriends of England players.

Among them were some well-established tabloid fixtures, most notably Victoria Beckham (married, of course, to David) and pop star Cheryl Tweedy (then engaged to England left-back Ashley Cole). But the group also included a lot of non-celebrity women. Instead, they did not lie down flirt headlines By going on shopping sprees, dancing on tables, and leading a media circus that continued until their partners were knocked out of the tournament in the first round of the knockout stage.

So was the rest of the world WAG metwhich was an abbreviation Generalization In the British press for a few years at that point. Literally speaking, a WAG is simply the wife or girlfriend of an athlete. But the WAG as seen in Baden-Baden settled into the public consciousness, creating an identity that points to the private He writes A woman who lives a certain kind of life. The WAG prototype is young, white, skinny, beautiful and, if possible, blond. She is also shallow, pompous, and obsessed with status. She lives on drinking rosé wine, going to parties, and spending her husband’s money.

There was an immediate backlash to the term, particularly from the wives themselves: “Don’t call me a WAG,” Tweedy Tell The Standard, making sure to make it clear she didn’t need a rich husband to take care of her – her shopping and clubbing was done on her own dime, thank you very much.

It doesn’t matter. Language – and its associations – ceased. By 2010, The New York Times male that the New Jersey Nets “may be second to last in the league in scoring and middle of the road in rebounding, but they can compete with the best in the WAGs.” (One of their attackers, Kris Humphries, was dating Kim Kardashian at the time.) In 2015, E! Debut reality show called WAGs LAwhich would become the first in a Housewives-style franchise that was eventually included Miami And Atlanta also. Then, in 2019, we got Agatha Christie SCAM: Football WAG Coleen Rooney has alleged that fellow WAG Rebekah Vardy has been leaking details about her to the tabloids…and that she has private Instagram posts to prove it. The story was interesting and interesting, but it didn’t do much to dispel the notion that WAG life was basically frivolous and weak women, who had nothing better to do than spy on each other and then fool the press about it.

Throughout it all, the WAGs that have garnered the most attention have always been either famous themselves, or partnered with extremely popular players. If you could name an American WAG, someone would probably be like Aisha Curry Or Brittany Mahomes—the women whose husbands get multimillion-dollar contracts and endorsement deals.

But there are 15 players on every NBA roster. The NHL allows 23, MLB takes 40, and the NFL takes 53. And most of those players aren’t even close to being trademark players. The lowest pay is the league minimum, which is still a lot of money: somewhere between $700,000 and $1 million, depending on the sport. But this is only if they manage to stay on the list all year round. Going down from the top level doesn’t disqualify them from the pros, but it can cost them significant income. Baseball players, for example, don’t have guaranteed contracts, which means if you were sent to the minors during the 2022 season, your salary would drop from $700,000 to $57,200.

That still isn’t poverty wages, to be sure. But for these athletes, that uncertainty about money is compounded by other kinds of uncertainty—mainly about where you live, potential injuries, and an ever-aging body. The player’s romantic partner is exposed to these same pressures – fluctuations in income, sudden changes in living situation, and worries about the future. But she deals with them in the service of someone else’s dream. And even if she travels fairly regularly, she spends a good part of the year alone, which becomes especially difficult if the couple has children.

this is life for the majority of professional athletes and their wives; There is much, much more to Alison Kutcharczeks than Ayesha Curry. Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of the most compelling social media content has come from the women in this situation — their husbands are living the dream, but somewhat precariously, and as a result, their lives are, as a result, equal parts ambition and pegging.

When Lauren Wyman felt crushed under the weight of her corporate finance career in 2019, she found solace in launching a small goth clothing and fashion company.

She initially created accounts on Facebook and Instagram for her store, Dark mother’s clothes, but only made $5,000 to $6,000 in sales in the first year. Wyman, 32, joined TikTok at the start of the pandemic, launching new products and posting a few videos that went viral. In 2022, it made $217,000.

“Part of what the people on this app have done is create their own slice of the American Dream that has been heralded so much,” said Wyman, who is based in Arizona, whether it’s opening a small business or people no longer facing homelessness, people who are able to retire, and creators who are now allowed to pursue their creative endeavors.”

now, Creators are worried The platform may be taken from them. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew Testified before the legislators Thursday, trying to convince them that TikTok is not a threat to national security. But it was largely unsuccessful in proving that TikTok was beyond the reach of Chinese influence, observers say.

The Biden administration recently increased its efforts to force the sale of TikTok by its owner, ByteDance, which is Chinese company subject to Chinese law — the same thing Trump sought to do in 2020 with the TikTok ban that was banned by federal courts. On March 15, it was reported that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States ByteDance has given an ultimatumSell ​​TikTok or face a ban in the US.

A recent bill has been introduced in the Senate that would enable the Biden administration to ban TikTok Bipartisan support.

An outright ban on the app would be a devastating blow to the many small businesses that have turned to TikTok to reach potential customers rather than resort to traditional and expensive forms of marketing.

Facebook and Instagram are “pay-to-play” platforms and don’t offer a significant amount of return on investment, said Kelis Landrum, co-founder of Los Angeles-based marketing agency True North Social.

“TikTok offers the broadest organic reach of any of the channels right now,” Landrum said. “If you’re very successful on TikTok, that’s probably what you focus on most because [as] Small business, you can’t afford to attack marketing on a bunch of different fronts at the same time.”

Elise Burns, who runs stationery and household goods design company Launched in college in 2015, she said she saw a direct correlation between her TikTok videos and sales. After posting a video showing a shipment of daytime planners that garnered 2.9 million views in June 2022, it sold over 2,000 daytime planners in two days.

“I can look at my sales and see like that month, I had TikTok going viral,” Burns said.

Last year, it generated $1 million in sales through its website, which gets traffic from TikTok and Instagram. She devotes four hours a day to these two platforms but has since expanded into wholesale and unlocking Interface shop in Durham, North Carolina, to diversify its revenue. With her business, which she now runs full time, she’s been able to pay off most of her student loans and buy a home.

Kristina Ha experienced a similar phenomenon with New York’s Cat Café and rescue organization, Meow salon. In late 2020, she began posting videos of her retired parents interacting with some of her kittens.

When she posted a video of her parents sewing cat beds to support the rescue business, her fans demanded they be purchased. Raised $20,000 in one week.

“It was crazy and kind of unexpected,” Ha said. “When I look at the video, it probably wasn’t my best work.”

Christina Ha, center, with her father, Jaeshin Ha, and mother, Youngsuk Ha, managed to raise $20,000 in a week for her cat rescue organization, Meow Parlor, after a video showing her parents went viral.

(Katherine Ha)

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A video she posted this month of “A Day in the Life of My 76-Year-Old Dad” has 10.2 million views — and another $30,000 worth of cat bed sales. She’s also taken in a flurry of visitors to Meow Parlor who have signed up to foster and adopt the kittens and become a monthly donor to the nonprofit.

“TikTok is very, very amazing. The community is very supportive in a way that I haven’t found on other social media platforms,” Ha said.

Even business like Cleaning trash cans Carpet repair has found fans on TikTok.

Josh Nolan, who directs The guys fix the carpet In the San Francisco Bay Area, he said he joined TikTok after nearly two decades of carpet repair after a technician told him he needed to get into social media. The results were amazing.

Josh Nolan, who runs Carpet Repair Guys in the San Francisco Bay Area, says TikTok has given him customers and the opportunity to be a content creator.

(Josh Nolan)

Nolan said that when he started moving content he posted on Instagram and Facebook over to TikTok, they were “going through the roof in numbers.”

Nolan still uses Yelp and Google AdWords to bring in business, but he hears from customers all the time that they watch TikTok or YouTube videos of him fixing carpets, he said. He now has more than 850k followers on the app and is making some extra income through brand sponsorships.

“I’m not off the truck yet. I’m still at work and I’m on my knees doing carpet repair, but that’s been good side money,” Nolan said. As a social media content creator. I’m just a blue collar contractor. But with that you have this resource here at your disposal.”

Last fall, TikTok partnered with American Express #ShopSmall Accelerator To help small businesses during the holiday shopping season. A week after a Senate bill was introduced to give the federal government the power to ban the app, TikTok has been introduced Launched initiative Small business spotlight Entrepreneurs who have achieved tremendous success on the platform, allowing many to quit their day jobs.

Lauren Wyman, 32, runs her alternative and gothic goods store out of her garage in Arizona. TikTok has driven its sales in a way you don’t see when you post to Instagram.

(Lauren Wyman)

That’s what Wyman hopes to do, but the uncertainty of TikTok is making her pause for now.

“Wanting to take the leap but also feeling afraid, that you might step out of…having over 125,000 followers [TikTok and Instagram combined] Down to just 17,000 [on Instagram]”It’s too risky,” she said.

As part of the company’s campaign to change lawmakers’ minds, TikTok payment For a group of TikTokers to travel to Washington ahead of Chew’s testimony to protest a potential ban of their beloved app. Chew the same Post TikTok Appeal to the masses a few days before his testimony.

“I can tell you without a doubt that the next generation of black business owners will come from the TikTok platform,” said Pedri Nicol, a bakery owner from Columbus, Ohio, who was part of the press conference organized by TikTok. “If you ban TikTok, you risk capping the ambitions of an entire generation of wealth makers.”

Without access to TikTok, small business owners say they may be focusing their efforts on Instagram, where they already post content from TikTok. But many people are lukewarm about the Meta-owned platform.

“Instagram hasn’t really done much for me as a creator or small business,” Wyman said. “I’ve used their tools, I’ve tried their advertising. … The platforms are nowhere alike in terms of their audience and engagement.”