Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true and assured I have gotten either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.
- René Descartes
During my morning ritual of browsing Facebook Marketplace for things I probably don’t need and vehicles I definitely can’t afford, an ad appeared that made me pause. It was from a brand I had never heard of with a generic lifestyle photo of a guy in a sweater. As you know, the photo was small and blended in with the 1980s F250s I was ogling. Maybe it’s because I look at clothing brands every day, maybe it’s because I’m cynical, maybe it’s because I’m just simply on high alert but something seemed a bit... off about the photo.
You know where this is going. I clicked through to the website and was presented with a brand that on the surface looked like a genuine high quality menswear label. Materials looked comfortable, silhouettes timeless, photography professional, models stylish and relaxed. Frankly it looked like a brand that would pair well with Goodwear. But again, something seemed off.
Looking through colors on a random product page, every photo of the model was identical, save for the chosen color of the piece. This isn’t totally uncommon and is easier than ever to do with AI. AI.... a nauseating thought finally crossed my mind. Was this entire brand made with AI?
Back on the homepage I zoomed in and obsessed over every detail. I feel like I can pick out AI photos and videos right away and it’s honestly embarrassing to admit how long this took. At last, there it was. A single, definitive, and confirming tell of AI slop: his sunglasses were wrong. One lens of the glasses was misshapen and his eye curved around the frame.
With my suspicions confirmed, I reanalyzed everything. When I say this entire brand is made with AI, I am not kidding. Every photo is fake. Every product is fake. Every review is fake. Not a single real-life photograph on the whole site. Once I knew, I knew, and the images now look glaringly AI generated. But not at first, and definitely not on the home page. And importantly not on the Facebook ad. It took a few minutes of focused scrutiny and eye-squinting to figure it out. And that was on my laptop, harder for sure on a phone screen. The whole experience was unsettling, and just sort of eerie.
I don’t know if I sound like Leo in “Don’t Look Up” or if this is all obvious and I’m slow on the uptake. But it sure smells like smoke in here. What’s real anymore? What are we really buying? What the hell is going on? It’s not exactly a marketing secret to know that in order to gain customers you need to sell them on a lifestyle, on a brand identity. What makes someone buy Patagonia over The North Face? Buy a Gucci tee for $650 (that’s a real price), or to that point anything with a logo on it? At the end of the day the brand has successfully convinced you that their products match your lifestyle, your identity, and your values - for better or for worse. So "Buy Now!" and willingly pay to advertise for Carhartt, with their logo proudly front and center on your forehead or chest. And be happy about it because Carhartt lets you show the world who you are by saying “I chose to buy this brand and not that brand.”
What happens when that brand you identify with... isn’t even real? And what does that even mean? It’s real clothing, it’s made by real people, you can really wear it. But the real value isn't just lost, it was never even there to begin with. The authenticity is dead and buried. Carhartt, as much as I like to roast them, genuinely comes from a legacy of hard-wearing, affordable, durable, comfortable, American-made workwear. Whether that’s still true or not today can be debated, but it isn’t really important to people anymore anyway. It’s what Carhartt represents that matters. So again, what happens when a completely artificial brand, using artificial photography and artificial faces convinces you that they match your values? The frightening part is does any of that even matter or will people even care in a couple of years. I feel unnerved to say the least. Again I know I might sound like I’ve got my tinfoil hat on but I fear the impact this will have on us all, and on small businesses in particular, will be monumental. Not to mention the impact it could have on our collective understanding of what’s real or not.
Imagine a denim brand started by a small group of folks who care about their product, have genuine values, and in every sense of the word are the real thing. People working to make a living doing what they love and creating something worth creating. Well why not use AI to simply copy their entire aesthetic, ship an identical lower quality product from overseas, employ no real people, and (having $0 in overhead) erase the small business and the craftspeople making a living? Arbitrarily price the product and use the profits to spend outlandish money on advertising to keep the ball rolling. Who wins here? Just the dude pocketing our money and Facebook and Google pocketing his. I feel like given what I do for Goodwear and my general skillset I could do this fairly easily. I also feel in the near future your Goldendoodle will be able to invent a clothing brand in an afternoon. Is this empowering or horrifying? Both, I suppose, but mostly overwhelming.
To take it a step further, I think we can all agree social media algorithms have gotten pretty damn good at feeding us content tailored to our personal interests. At the simplest level, you come to this website, you will probably see a Goodwear ad soon. That's just how it works. What we are all learning though is maybe you lingered an extra half-second on a video about Political Opinion A. Well if it was a video to make you angry, tomorrow you're about to get a dozen more of the same type of video. You get angrier. You watch more. Rinse, repeat and you start to think invading Greenland is a good idea. Forget politics, what about the brands you follow? The photos you like. The comments you make on your friend's post ("sweet jacket dude!"). I do not think it's an exaggeration or even remotely far-fetched to imagine a brand created perfectly for you, like, the next day. Hey look, a really cool brand that's totally in line with your values is selling a jacket just like the one in that photo you liked and commented on, AND it's 30% off! I mean seriously... how would you know?
I of course have no solutions or fixes. I'm kind of just grimacing. All in all this is really a philosophical question about branding and what it means to be authentic. Brands have immense influence on culture and information, look at Patagonia as just one example. What happens when brands are created with nefarious and ulterior motives? You could create a product or brand, not to innovate or contribute, but to convince would-be customers of a message, of a lie, or just to bleed us dry of our money and of our intellect. When we begin to attach ourselves and our identities to purely artificial creations I’m not sure there will be any stopping it.
The next time I’m lugging a dozen or so t-shirts, my dog, my girlfriend, three cameras, and an array of lights to a photoshoot I worry there will be a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Not at all because of what I’m doing, but because I’m afraid precisely what I’m doing is about to be unrecognizable. But the reality is, if something doesn’t work on this website, or you see an ad with less-than-perfect photography, or you get an email with a typo... it’s because I did it and I screwed up. Everything you ever see from Goodwear is done in-house, probably by me. For years I’ve felt like I can’t keep up with the bigger brands and their marketing teams, web design teams, quality of presentation... customer service departments... (sorry everyone). The silver lining might just be that when everything is all nice and perfect and AI polished my mistakes will be *charming*. It probably goes without saying but rest assured: after 43 years of Goodwear being true to its values, we are not interested whatsoever in ditching them in favor of the hot new thing. The hot new thing in the 2000s was using child labor in Southeast Asia to make your clothes. We never signed onto that.
I suppose my only parting words are to pay attention, be discerning, and understand what you’re really buying, and therefore funding. In other words, don’t be a sucker I guess. It will probably get harder from here.
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Oh... and that photo at the top? I made that 100% with ChatGPT. It's my first, and it will be my last, thank you very much.