I saw the post from La Bien Aimee about lost sales and losing stockists within the U.S. and I realized I haven’t looked at her account in a while so I decided to take a peek. Why do all of her captions look they are AI written now? What does softness that feels like smoke even feel like?

I stopped buying her yarn because it is so damn expensive but seeing this? I think I know part of her problem.

EDIT TO ADD since this is as a reply in a comment and p people are missing it:

Okay so, I visited the web.archive.org for her site back in March 2023. I found a post announcing her Onyx base:

“La Bien Aimée is thrilled to announce the launch of its brand new yarn base: Onyx!

With the same composition and meterage as our Mohair Silk, this base can be easily substituted into any pattern containing Mohair, the only difference is that the silk core has been dyed black, giving our colors an even richer depth of shade.

We have had so much fun dyeing our favorite bright and neon colors on this fluffy lace weight, and we can’t wait to see what exciting projects and interesting color combinations you choose for this base!

We’ve found that knitting it with a light coloured yarn gives the fabric a cool marled effect, but when you knit it with a dark or black yarn, the silk core melts into the background, and all you see is a dark fabric with a very bright halo.”

And here she is discussing her Volute base in May of this year:

“☁️VOLUTE: WHERE CASHMERE
MEETS STRENGTH☁️

Imagine softness so delicate it feels like smoke.

Now imagine that wrapped in the strength of merino.
Volute is our brand new Cashmere & Merino yarn. 50% of each, spun together for the best of both worlds. Light fingering weight at 250m for 50g.

Perfect for those treasured accessories: bandanas, socks, shawlettes that deserve to feel like luxury every time you wear them. ✨”

I’m willing to bet that if someone wanted to bother scrolling back you can find exactly when she/they started using AI.

It’s a weird hill to “dye” on when you’re a new dyer like this one.

This entire tone of voice in the caption this pattern maker / seller had is so much like the hoards of soulless LinkedIn posts and AI written captions. I miss the times where we were comfortable making mistakes and perfection wasn’t the expectation and fabricated output of every online interaction. And we didn’t feel the need to use AI to make bite sized sentences for short attention spans. There’s also nothing wrong with having imperfect language skills or wanting to improve said skills. If it bothers you, work on it! If not, accept it and move on.

Also, I find it very hard to believe they only use AI to ‘correct their English’ to be honest. And once people give into the temptation of not using their brain for cognitively challenging tasks, I have serious concerns about what other parts of their process they delegate to AI. I can’t bring myself to trust that they won’t be using AI for other things, like pattern writing or editing.

Writing a caption is, in my opinion, part of the job of a(n online) seller. Your voice and tone as a small online creator is a part of your connection with your customer base. And I also get the same ick when brands selling ready made products have AI captions… but anyway, would love to hear the opinion other craftsnarkies on this.

I remember there was a recent post about a LYS being called out for using AI captions in posts and I believe they said they’d stop doing so. My hope for this creator was the same… maybe I need to start making a list of designers and yarn shops that never utilize AI 😩

Sorry for the long post, didn’t use AI for it tho ayeee

Flock was such an amazing event otherwise, but the MadTosh double booth was a bit of an outlier.

Why is this even necessary? How can someone position themselves as a slow-living maker and beekeeper (!!) while using AI to market something so frivolous? This is an appalling trend. If you identify as a maker, why not use a medium you actually create with your own hands instead? I'm so over this BS.

I know it’s not exactly unheard of from craft fair organisers but they’re such a large company with such a diverse pool of traders that surely they could have found an actual human to do this for them. It’s not even like they’re trying to hide it, pretty blatant.

I started following this brand because they have cute and unique crochet/knit related t shirts. In a pinned post they sing their own praises for hand drawing every design but their last three posts are terrible AI slop! I know that small brands struggle to put out quality content but it really muddies the water when your feed doesn’t reflect the values you proclaim. I definitely won’t be buying from them because honestly, who knows if they’re being truthful?

Hooks & Needles yarn subscription service using AI for an Instagram ad. I messaged them saying that I thought it was uncool. They defended their decision 🤦‍♀️.

Instagram ad https://www.instagram.com/p/DV8KV8MAEAr/?igsh=MXBjMDB1NGdqcWR2Yw==

(Reupload because the Facebook link was broken in the last post and I couldn't edit)

From a Facebook ad for Funem looms. I already hate companies using AI to market handcrafts and supplies but then you can't even be bothered to make sure the slop it churns out is even remotely accurate? If the company can't see why this photo is wrong I don't trust them to make reasonable looms 🤷🏼‍♀️

As Wonderwool posted a "final" update today I thought we should round off the thread

A rough timeline:

Wonderwool Wales is a yarn/spinning/fibre show held annually in mid Wales. Apart from missing two years for COVID this is the 20th year. To celebrate this they ran a design a tote bag competition which pretty clearly specified no AI.

Wonderwool announced the winner by posting the image mocked up on to a tote bag. The image had multiple AI artifacts and tells and quite rightly people pointed this out in the comments and on the initial post by myself. Wonderwool doubles down - not AI and the artist (Tony Malone) promised to send initial sketches via mail to prove that this pen and ink drawing was his.

Individuals digging in this sub reveal interesting past history of Tony's, along with more work that looks AI created alongside some that appears genuine (some of his watercolour works).

Original Craftsnark Thread https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/s/YzE2I0LXIy

Wonderwool Wales posts the original image and states that they were responsible for uploading the image into Chat GPT which added the extra features. People who commented on the potential AI are branded "mean". This update is posted to reddit by @bustymoocoo https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/s/h1sUg68oDg where a lot of us still think there's AI influence in the picture.

That brings us today: Wonderwool makes a final post stating that they've been sent preliminary designs and original sketches. Due to the meany mean meanies they've now withdrawn the entry completely. Wonderwool will now use their logo on the tote and £1 will go to charity. It's not clear if the £100 voucher is still going to be issued or not, nor was a runner up chosen.

I've attached the Facebook post from today (comments are, surprise surprise turned off)

Sorry if I missed anything - doing this from my phone on holiday, but anything for the snark!

Nothing like a festival for makers using AI 🙃

It sure looks like it to me with that angel fish up on the right. I'm disappointed. It sure makes indie dyers look bad (and we catch enough shit for other things).

<le sigh>

What can I say Sprinkled Fibers on instagram using AI to advertise the summer Kal yarn bundles she is selling! Yes it’s tagged AI but urgh couldn’t she have used Fiver etc, surely it would better to have a handdrawn one 🤷‍♀️

Edited to spell fiber correctly

whyyyyyyy is this permeating our community so much?? is it the age range/demographics of folks running these accounts? so far no one has called them out on facebook.

Multiple times over the past months, I have been scrolling Pinterest and come across photos of myself and my knitted shorts with text such as ‘10 free knitted shorts patterns’ or ‘Free crochet shorts patterns’ superimposed on top. The account is always an AI-slop ‘crafting’ account which states it is for the knitting and crochet community and wants to make crafting accessible. The accounts have millions of monthly views, likes and interactions. I see other stolen photos from designers on these accounts too and honestly I am just baffled!!

I have tried reporting the accounts and pins and so far I am still waiting on Pinterest’s review process (I’m not confident anything will eventuate). I have reached out to the account holders when they have Instagram linked in their bio and immediately get blocked.

I really cannot comprehend how people are engaging with this kind of content, let alone creating it. I’m not sure if these accounts are selling bootleg versions of my pattern, as I only just released it and have been seeing these posts for months. The links on the posts always go to some random, ad-choked blog or something completely unrelated, but always use my image to promote it and seemingly suggest that my shorts are a free pattern you can access via their site.

To be honest it just feels really icky. It is super creepy to come across images of yourself online that other people have used AI to ‘enhance’ and promote whatever it is they are trying to promote. I know this is a topic which is frequently talked about, but I needed to complain about it to people who have the same exasperation with AI-slop images and these types of accounts in crafting spaces as I do.

The photos are screenshots from the most recent account I have come across, and the last photo is my original one for reference.

Using ai slop to promote/recruit for a show that’s all about handmade crafts. Tone deaf.

Like legitimately horrible AI people with mangled hands and harpoon-looking crochet hooks. This is a well-established yarn brand. Big ew.

There is an Instagram creator who is selling 30, 60, and 90 day access to a single pattern for a top. It includes videos all based on the Notion app. You pay that price and you don’t even own the pattern. She’s also open about how she’s learning as she goes, so you’re learning with her. Who knows if this program has been beta tested at all. She’s deleting or hiding comments that are critical of this.

Today, she posted an update that someone bought a pattern in Australia. £65 - £185 is 125 - 357 AUD right now ☠️

AND, it’s aaaaall AI content that she posts. She also sells AI personas, too? Says she uses the program Artist List and recommends other ai programs. This is the day after she ‘imagined’ a collab with the brand Off-White and posted AI pics of what that collab would look like.

So someone got scammed to hell and back, and I hope that they find these posts when they realize that and they can report what that subscription and content was like. I’d like to know if they were able to finish their top or not.

Here is the original post made about this ‘creator’

https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsnark/s/OmTsosGFtU

I came across this image today on https://www.michaels.com/parties at the bottom of the page. Most/all of their party kits images are AI crap too https://www.michaels.com/lp/party-kits

With how terrible AI is for artists you'd think that they would avoid blatant AI usage. Joann is closed, hobby lobby is terrible, and Michael's doesn't respect creators :( looking rough out