Democrat Protestor AI vs. Republican Protestor AI

About

Democrat Protestor AI vs. Republican Protestor AI or This Is What AI Thinks of Us refers to a series of memes purportedly showing the results of using the prompt "democrat protestor" compared to "republican protestor" in artificial intelligence image-generating tools, purportedly Midjourney specifically, with the former term supposedly resulting in an image of a crying, blue-haired, stereotypical SJW and the latter showing men protesting in a crowd surrounded by the American flag. The claim was first made on Twitter in June 2023 and revealed as false in the following days, with numerous users attempting to replicate the results and making further memes parodying the original post.

Origin

On June 2nd, 2023, Twitter^[1] user @Ben64319554 posted, "This is what AI thinks of us. 1. 'Democrat protestor' 2. 'Republican protestor,'" also sharing two AI-generated images. On the left is the image supposedly resulting from the term "democrat protestor," showing a stereotypical social justice warrior with blue hair crying. On the right is the image supposedly resulting from the term "republican protestor," showing a man with his fist raised among a crowd with the American flag in the background. The post gained over 27,400 likes and 4,400 retweets in three days (shown below).

The same Twitter user posted numerous other purported examples of the results of the terms and variations of the terms as comments on the original post over the following days (examples shown below).

Backlash and Response

On June 4th, 2023, the Twitter^[2] user admitted that they did not specifically use the prompts "democrat protestor" and "republican protestor" for the images after another Twitter^[3] user, @KEMOS4BE, called them out for lying, writing:

What was a lie? I didn’t say “this is the entire prompt that I used” … that would be a lie. And – I do lie a lot, I’m Ukrainian it’s in my blood… but you assumed something nobody else would have if they understood the tech.

The Twitter^[4] user later expanded on their response to the hoax, writing, "Best part is how many leftists lost their shit over this… The irony, that patriots enjoyed a silly thread and commies pissed themselves about the injustice done to them. Life imitates art," also posting a meme in response (shown below).

Spread

The post inspired numerous Twitter^[5][6] users to attempt to recreate the results throughout the first week of June 2023, both before and after the original poster revealed that they didn't use the exact prompts originally purported, also inspiring users to create parodies of the post (examples shown below).

The original post by @Ben64319554 also gained viral spread across social media. For example, on June 3rd, 2023, Instagram^[7] user garbagehuman4.0 shared it, garnering over 15,000 likes in two days. On June 4th, the Facebook^[8] page Department of Oncology, Feminism Wing posted it, garnering over 570 reactions in a day.

On June 6th, Twitter^[9] user @MattBinder posted the purported exact prompts used in Midjourney that resulted in the original images, writing, "not only did this person request a crying blue haired protester for their 'Democrat'… they also specified that the 'Republican' be a 'chad' in their prompt lmao," garnering over 12,600 likes in under a day (exact prompts shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References