Trance Formation

An irritating Ai trope with no reason to exist

Another trend that both baffles and irritates me: Persons posting reels on Fakebook and TikTok with the identical format and music, obviously Ai fakes, but pretending to be real, live, on-stage performances in front of "America's Got Talent" or "American Idol" judges. They go by the name of "Transformation Dance" or some version of shape-shift dance.

The premise: The reel begins, usually, with a slender, elegant woman in a stunning, gauzy dress, on what appears to be a performance stage with dramatic lighting. Next to her, most improbably, is some animal. It could be large, like a lion, camel, or ostrich, or smaller, like a cat. The music begins and is nearly always an insufferable slice from the Cooper/Gaga "A Star is Born" mashup of "Always Remember Us This Way" (also played to death on reels of swing dance competitions).

The development: The woman and animal begin to spin and twirl until the animal either changes form, or the woman merges with the animal, usually becoming a taller version of herself but with a stylized head of the animal, who is now gone. She keeps dancing, and may even change costumes or continue to shape-shift.

The cringe: Meanwhile, during this whole procedure, the camera keeps cutting away to "American Idol" or "AGT" judges, ALWAYS with their mouths wide open in amazement, AS IF they are watching this obvious fake Ai fabrication on a real stage, which is clearly an impossibility.

(There's another series that just has a person merely walk onto the stage and turn into an animal, again, while the AGT judges just gape in amazement.)

Here are three shorter TikTok examples, which may be the source of the Fakebook reels, though those tend to be a bit longer:

@storiiestoldMost UNBELIEVABLE Human-Snake Transformation on AGT! #americagottalent #magic #funny

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

@samantha.howell657Stunning Transformation Dance with a Beauty and Animals!Have You Ever Seen a performance Like This?✨🦉💃#animaldance #agt #talentshow #animalfusion #fyp

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

@timi61570The transformation show of talents and animals. It's awesome.#fyp #show #americagottalent #girl #popular #fusion

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

Yeah, Ai can now produce images and videos that are almost impossible to distinguish from authentic images and videos, except when they show something clearly impossible, as in these cases.

The scary thing is when they do deep fakes of real persons saying and doing things meant to demonize or incriminate them, and the ordinary viewer has no way of knowing it's fake. Expect political ads of that nature soon, or used as an excuse to bring down someone the PTB wish to eliminate.

We have reached the day when you can't believe anything you see online or on TV, and one should approach all such visuals accordingly, unless proven otherwise.