If you spend any time on the artsy side of Instagram, you know it has been chaos this past year. Every few weeks there is a new controversy, a new moral dilemma, a new âare we the problem?â moment. And the latest plot twist dropped right into my feed this week. Alana OâBrien, the influencer with the face that looks like it was painted by a mildly dramatic Renaissance master, has officially teamed up with Meta AI.
When she announced her shiny AI partnership, the reaction was immediate. Artists felt betrayed because they were the ones who built her myth in the first place. They gave her the aura she now monetises. And her response was basically that influencing does not pay that well and that digital art has its own controversies, which honestly felt like a shrug disguised as a statement.
What makes this mess so fascinating is what it reveals about 2025. Even the people who become famous for embodying human artistry no longer feel the need to stand apart from the machine. And if the Renaissance Muse herself is ready to join the algorithm, where does that leave the rest of us still clinging to the romance of the handmade?
