TikTok horror hub 👻
The next big horror director isn't at film school, they're on social media and they're using AI
Who knows what’s real and what isn’t on social media? PhotoShop, fake private jet trips, manufactured drama and influencers grifting hard for every possible penny means it’s hard to trust what’s being posted.
But on TikTok, @baddreams1985 (the username belonging to artist, writer and filmmaker Benjamin Terence Leefarr Smith), is turning that to his advantage.
Smith makes narrative sets of AI-generated images – the social media version of a graphic novel, if you will – that, at first, seem like any other online info-dump. But they’re actually horror stories. And more than that, they’re horror stories that have amassed a legion of fans, with Smith saying his posts have, occasionally, reached a million views every five minutes.
Part 1 of his The Thompson Extension – which tells the tale of a missing family and a set of creepy subterranean rooms – has been liked over 2m times, and has grown to a 149-episode saga, all of them with tens of thousands of views and comments. It even had Reddit asking if it was a real place.
Another story, Clarke’s Cube, only contains a small number of images, but has 53 million views. Why is it so popular? According to Smith, it’s a “blend of morbid curiosity, escalating tension, and unresolved mystery that compels viewers to engage further, whether by searching for more information or commenting, thereby fuelling the algorithmic push of the content”.
Despite (I assume) almost no-one knowing who is behind the account, his audience is easily outranking some of Hollywood’s biggest horror releases of recent years. And maybe that means we’re moving into a new era of scary?
“The experience of consuming horror online is distinctively more immersive than watching in the cinema or television,” he told me. “Our mobile devices, which have become almost an extension of ourselves, serve as personal conduits to these stories, making the horror feel more intimate and invasive. This, coupled with the omnipresence of these stories on platforms where we also receive news, subtly blurs the lines between fiction and reality, making us wonder, ‘Is this real?’”
And considering his success, you’ve got to believe Hollywood is aware of this sort of thing – not least considering A24’s plans to adapt the r/Backrooms subreddit, which centres around a fictional place that resembles a 1980s carpeted and fluoro-lit office that spans who knows how many miles.
Other things I looked at with my eyes
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👾 I’ve heard agencies talk about the advertising potential of video games for nigh on a decade now, and it doesn’t feel like anyone’s really cracked it yet. That might be because most players don’t really want ads in their games. EA, a company famous for being ‘thoughtful’ is going to try and make it work, ‘thoughtfully’.
🦞 Brands have also been hot on super-short form content for quite some time, despite Quibi crashing and burning. Interesting reading how Mega Matrix is handling it by hooking people in with free episodes and analysing scripts to deliver what kind of plot twist is going to keep them watching. “We don’t treat each show as an artistic endeavor but a product designed to evoke emotional response.”,
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🧩 It’s not just me being a granny, Dazed Digital confirmed that everyone really is super into puzzles atm.
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🧸 Economist Tyler Cowen thinks AI teddy bears are coming. And they’re going to be terrifying.
🥘 Earlier this year I read a lot of trend reports, many of which said Ozempic was going to have some wild impact on the world. We’re still early in, but Nestlé is releasing a WHOLE LINE OF FOOD for people taking that and other GLP-1 drugs.
👎 The Humane AI pin wasn’t very good, and now they want to sell the business. It’s not been a good time for physical AI devices, after some of the backstory of Rabbit’s founder was also revealed.
🤳 Do companies want employee influencers? Yes and no.
👸 Let’s fully bring back medieval headpieces.