It’s been couple of years since I last posted about AI slop generated skateboards, but recently my timeline has been hammered with ads from a bullshit company selling so-called skate shoes, and using AI generated product and lifestyle photos. It’s so very bad, almost as bad as trying to pass off corduroy slippers as viable skate shoes. I threw in a couple of less elaborate (and less offensive) examples as well. I’m not going to link to these brands because eff them.
Trooper America
Here’s the one that started it all…. For a fraction of a split millisecond I thought it might be post board-focus, as in “Even loafers can be tough!” Alas, no. While that would have been amusing, the soft focus and siamese twin baseplate on the front truck are a huge clue, aside form the missing back truck.
This first collage looks ok-ish at first, until you look at the details. There’s an ollie off a rail that would be plausible if not for the trucks that look like the impression of a skateboard truck from a dream someone once had. The third picture apparently shows some sort of experimental longboarding trucks. The last one is completely bizarre, peak 2024 AI technology. Yet somehow, he doesn’t have extra fingers.
The prompt for this next set of pics must have been “Show me lifestyle shots at a skatepark in Venice Ca with a guy that vaguely resembles the 80’s version Rob Roskopp. Make sure to include hilarious perspective fails, and oh yeah, at least one photo with an extra set of mutant Grind King trucks mounted on top of the board., and another one with extreme board warpage.”
They suckered “Legendary skateboarder Anthony Johnson” into “rocking a pair.” I hope you got paid in something other than shoes.
Here’s the thing with this crap. A lot of the posts are getting likes. Sure, most of them are probably bots or clickfarm generated, but some them are real live humans who have been duped. You might see comments like “I wouldn’t skate in these, but they would be cool to chill in after a session.” Sure dude. If they couldn’t be bothered to generate real-life photos, or even run the AI-generated pics by a human with any sort of skateboarding knowledge, then how can you trust that the product isn’t just some extremely cheap-ass crap imported from China? You can’t. Get bent! Get as bent as the trucks in these photos….
Peanut Boards
I also recently came across a kids skateboard whose photos seemed a little bit iffy, but almost passed. That first one could have been just an awkwardly timed shot. It’s a basically a board that kids can decorate, and it comes in a whiteboard or blackboard version. I got no beef with that. It’s for little kids. Why not? Even if it has cartoons on the wheel tread that you can color in. Even real companies have released wheels with graphics on the rolling surface. Sure, none of the product shots quite match each other. Sometimes the boards have handles, sometimes they don’t . Sometimes it’s got a rocker, sometimes it looks like a Skull Skates Mutant. Sure, one of the wheels has football helmets…
So yeah, believable. Until you get to the shot where the kid is a split millisecond away from eating shit. There’s practically no way to get into that position without taking a spill. Even junior in the background is skeptical.
Here’s an ad from a company that tracks your health history and monitors for biomarkers that might help you predict which horrible disease you are going to suffer and die from. AI usage intros case is not very offensive, if not almost amusing. Skip to 5 years when some dodgy page/personality reposts it without the text and another caption (erroneously?) crediting Jay Adams with the quote about stopping skateboarding
Lastly, long time reader John Egertson sent in a photo from Prince Michel winery. It’s a poorly AI generated print that they might actually be trying to sell. Don’t look at the back legs, turns out the dogs poorly generated as well.
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