AI Videos of Black Women Depicted as ‘Bigfoot’ Are Going Viral

An AI-generated “bigfoot baddie,” pinch acrylic nails and a pinkish wig, speaks straight to her imaginary assemblage utilizing an iPhone. “We mightiness person to spell connected nan run,” she says. “I’m wanted for a mendacious study connected my babe daddy.” This AI video, generated by Google’s Veo 3, has racked up complete a cardinal views connected Instagram. It’s conscionable 1 of galore viral posts connected Instagram and TikTok viewed by WIRED that picture Black women arsenic primates and perpetuate racist tropes utilizing AI video tools.

Google’s Veo 3 was a deed pinch online audiences erstwhile it dropped astatine nan company’s developer convention successful May. Surreal generations of Biblical characters and cryptids, for illustration bigfoot, doing influencer-style vlogging quickly dispersed crossed societal media. AI-generated bigfoot vlogs were moreover utilized by Google arsenic a trading constituent successful ads promoting nan caller feature.

With “bigfoot baddies,” online creators are taking what was a reasonably innocuous inclination connected societal media and repurposing it to dehumanize Black women. “There's a humanities precedent down why this is offensive. In nan early days of slavery, Black group were overexaggerated successful illustrations to stress primal characteristics,” says Nicol Turner Lee, head of nan Center for Technology Innovation astatine nan Brookings Institution.

“It's some disgusting and disturbing that these group tropes and images are readily disposable to beryllium designed and distributed connected online platforms,” says Turner Lee.

One of nan astir celebrated Instagram accounts posting these generated clips has 5 videos pinch complete a cardinal views, little than a period aft nan account’s first post. The AI videos characteristic nan animal-woman hybrids speaking African American Vernacular English successful a caricatured manner, pinch nan characters often shown wearing a bonnet and threatening to conflict people. In 1 clip, nan AI generation, utilizing a state accent, implies she pulled retired a vessel of Hennessy liquor that was stored successful her genitals.

Veo 3 tin create everything seen successful videos for illustration this, nan scenery to nan spoken audio to nan characters themselves, from a azygous prompt. The bio of nan celebrated Instagram relationship includes a nexus to a $15 online people wherever you tin study really to create akin videos. In videos pinch titles for illustration “Veo 3 does nan dense lifting,” 3 teachers usage voiceover to measurement students done nan process of prompting nan AI video instrumentality for bigfoot clips and creating accordant characters. The email reside listed arsenic nan administrator of nan online people bounced backmost messages erstwhile WIRED attempted to interaction nan creators.

A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Instagram, declined to remark connected nan record. Google and TikTok some acknowledged WIRED’s petition for comment, but did not supply a connection anterior to publication.

Our societal media study recovered copycat accounts connected Instagram and TikTok reposting nan “bigfoot baddie” clips aliases generating akin videos. A repost of 1 video connected Instagram has 1 cardinal views connected an AI-focused meme page. A different Instagram relationship has different “bigfoot baddie” video pinch almost 3 cardinal views. It’s not conscionable connected Instagram; an relationship connected TikTok dedicated to akin AI-generated contented presently has complete 1 cardinal likes. These accounts did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.