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What Is The 'Why Don't Pictures Like This Ever Trend' Meme About AI? 'Beautiful Cabin Crew' And Other Phrases That Mock AI Slop
Have you seen AI images that are captioned with phrases like "You will never regret liking this photo," "Why don't pictures like this ever trend" and even something that doesn't make sense, like "Scarlett Johansson 💋💋"?
It's all part of the ongoing trend that relies on engagement bait to promote poor-quality AI images and other content, primarily on Facebook lately.
So where does this trend come from and what does "beautiful cabin crew" even mean? Learn all of this in our brief explainer on the rise of the so-called "Facebook AI Posts Epidemic."
What Is Facebook AI Slop And Engagement Bait, Like The 'Why Don't Images Like This Ever Trend' Meme?
In late 2023, a major influx of AI-generated content began to crop up on Facebook. The epidemic involved a large number of AI-generated art being spammed by real users and bot accounts in a bid to farm engagement on the platform.
The so-called "AI epidemic" or "AI slop epidemic" has been a subject of viral discussion on social media since January 2024, with users noticing that the artificial intelligence images seemed to target older users who didn't realize the posts weren't real.
There's been another aspect to it, however: the AI images often seem to have been paired with the same set of phrases and tags such as "#BOOMchallenge" and "Today's the Best Photo." The phrases have been used as a means of boosting the posts' engagement, some picked as they seemingly drew in more likes and reposts, others due to the likeliness of people using them as search terms.
What Are Common AI Slop Phrases?
Here's the list of notable engagement bait phrases and hashtags that we discovered during our research:
- Beautiful Cabin Crew 🌹
- Scarlett Johansson💋💋
- #BOOMchallenge
- #cabincrewlifestyle
- #cabincrew
- #jenniferlopez
- Why Don't Pictures Like This Ever Trend
- You Will Never Regret Liking This Photo
- Close Your 70% Eyes and See Magic
- Today's the Best Photo
- Amen 🙏
- Today Is My Birthday I Hope Get Some Love Here
- Today Is My Birthday I Just Want a Wish
- Happy Birthday to Me, But I Haven't Received Any Blessings Yet
- Creative Rural Boy
- My Son Made This With His Own Hand
Where Do Engagement Bait Phrases Come From?
Most of the phrases used in the trend have different origins. For example, the "#BOOMchallenge" hashtag refers to the Boom Challenge, a 2021 TikTok trend that involved people dressing up into fashionable, revealing or otherwise unusual clothes, but has since lost its meaning as it has been used for engagement farming purposes.
The "beautiful cabin crew" originates from a specific sub-trend of AI-generated images of flight attendants holding pictures of Jesus Christ and Jesus revealing himself to fight attendants.
It is likely that "Scarlett Johansson" and "#jenniferlopez" became parts of the trend due to the likeliness of the names being searched by Facebook users, and phrases like "You will never regret liking this photo" are mere psychological tricks that are meant to get people to do just that.
Where Can I Find AI Slop Posts?
You can easily stumble upon AI slop just by browsing Facebook or by visiting the Insane Facebook AI Slop gimmick account (@FacebookAIslop) on X / Twitter. The account has been collecting the worst examples of the trend from Facebook since April 2024.
Lately, as the awareness of the trend spread outside of Facebook, it has become a subject of parodies, with users using the phrases with various images, especially those that are a little silly or bizarre.
For the full history of "Why don't pictures like this ever trend" and other engagement bait phrases on Facebook, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.
