Very happy to know that my Abandoned America trademark has been coopted by not one but two different AI slop "creators", both based out of Europe to circumvent my legal protections. I love this new world we live in.
Here's exhibit A: a "German" "guy" who somehow is releasing 3 entire text-based books in two weeks. His author photo and cover "art" are exactly the same AI style of the supposedly Scottish guy who started an Abandoned America channel on Youtube
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H3FVR5PJ?binding=paperback&qid=1792454998&sr=1-4&ref=dbs_dp_awt_sb_pc_tpbk
Well, nice knowing you all, I guess. The work I spent 20 years creating will drown in a sea of AI impostors using models that pilfered my writing/photos to create their garbage. I don't have the money to hire lawyers to chase phantoms. I'm sure this is coming soon to every small artist with a brand
When your favorite websites or YouTube channels or whatever go offline, hide behind a paywall, or just stop producing because all their public work is stolen with AI, the Internet is going to be such a miserable and shabby place - devoid of the only spark that made it truly magical years ago.
@AbandonedAmerica :BlobhajHugFullBody: :BlobhajHugFullBody: :BlobhajHugFullBody: :BlobhajHugFullBody: :BlobhajHugFullBody:
Oct 19, 2026, 11:54 PM@AbandonedAmerica
Geeez! We’re all fair game unless we have a multimillion dollar legal team on retainer
@Nerde that's exactly what they're counting on. Flood the zone, make it impossible to pursue legally, and then everything is AI garbage.
@Nerde @AbandonedAmerica Nice cheap guillotines made at home will fix this and I'm not sure much else will.
@AbandonedAmerica Who will photograph its remains? Looted data centers; unlit strands of fiber optic cables dandling from IXPs walls...
@pr_ret_lutz it'll have to be someone else because hopefully I won't have to live through this entire farce to its conclusion
@AbandonedAmerica sorry to ear what you're going through (I did buy your book and really love your writings). 😕
@pr_ret_lutz thank you very much, I really appreciate that. All I see are flaws in what I put out sometimes but hey, at least they're my flaws. It means a lot to know other people enjoy it.
@AbandonedAmerica @mcc The open internet is already dying. Everything growing logins to throttle scraping if not to age verify.
@blinkygal @mcc absolutely. I've heard about a number of creators who decided to stop publishing online due to AI. I haven't added new work to my website since 2025, I only post it on Patreon. Wanna guess why? The answer isn't because I'm trying to change for everything. Putting stuff out for free actually works best for getting subscribers. But I'm sick of my work getting hijacked
@AbandonedAmerica @blinkygal @mcc I actually deleted an online blog of mine, not because I think it'll be used or stolen, it's not that interesting and I made the decision when I started it not to use real names, but because of the tracking and general pounding my website was getting.
So yes the internet is both shrinking and filling up with useless slop at the same time...
I feel sorry for all the artists who are impacted.. it sucks to be here now.. :(
@cha1n @blinkygal @mcc you're not the only one, I can tell you that. I know multiple people that have done this
@AbandonedAmerica Ugh. I'm so sorry. 😡
@MFennVT thank you. Me too.
@AbandonedAmerica This is tragic. You’ve put I so so so much work. Not only into your photos / stories but into pushing to preserve some of places.
I do hope you can find a business Model that keeps a float.
@64bithero thank you. It has been twenty years since I started the project. I guess I just have to keep going and do my best to ignore it
@AbandonedAmerica What really makes this change nasty, is that it’s all a choice.
All that narrative — propaganda to be honest — about ’inevitability’ of this kind of bullshit AI is a choice that corrupt governments and courts made again and again: A choice to NOT enforce existing laws that could have protected the people.
None of this was inevitable. This is purely a choice, because we live in a deeply corrupt oligarchy that cosplays democracy & ’technological singularity’ 🤮
@AbandonedAmerica I kinda want a vlc plugin that act like a jellyfish client but for content that VLC can access.
That way, the youtuber could distribute their video as torrent and my VLC would tell me I saw 11 of the 14 available
Oct 20, 2026, 7:45 AM@AbandonedAmerica It’s just so… yeah :/
@AbandonedAmerica
I think the future of art is much like the past of art... analog.
I'm a creative who has been thinking about these things. I deleted my online portfolios years ago, seeing this coming.
It is hard to find ways to keep the bots/scrapers off your art altogether. Analog, at least, provides a significant amount of friction that in no way cheapens the experience of enjoying the art (probably enhances and focuses the experience).
I think what we experienced in the golden age of the internet will never happen again. That is gone. I see a future where some people abandon tech because they realize it doesn't enhance their lives anymore.
@neverbeaten that's a solid take, and I do hope the return to analog happens. I would mourn the great things about online communities but I took a lot of time away from social media myself and can't really say I regret it
@AbandonedAmerica
I'm seeing more people return to using physical media.
I miss getting printed magazines.
I've personally sold my e-ink tablets and have been collecting printed books again (I was 100% digital with books for a while).
I'd rather pick up a coffee table book of photography and art and take 2-3 minutes per page to take it in, over scrolling past a digital image on my phone or laptop after glancing at it for 2 seconds.
The digital experience of art cheapens it, commodifies it.
I took all my photography and paintings offline; I only display original pieces or prints in person now. It gets much less exposure, but doesn't feed the machine that is built to destroy me. The people that care actually take time to appreciate it in a meaningful way.
Yes, reach shifts from global to local. That is the clearest, most massive drawback. But I also think the future will be far more local (as in the past) in general, as climate collapse destroys institutions and infrastructure.
@neverbeaten I'd hope so - but one certainly would have a difficult time making a living as a working artist without an online presence, or I probably would have ditched mine already. I do agree with the shift back to the physical though. I've become a 4K collector to untether my movie watching from streaming, I prefer books to computer screens, I love third spaces. But these also are luxuries many can't afford, not that I'm rolling in cash.
Fuck. I am so sorry. I know there are open web projects working on combatting shit like this, but it’s too little, too slow, for those refusing to use AI to fight it.
@johannab @AbandonedAmerica It isn't only web projects. A book produced by a local org in my community is being sold through bookshop.org at $300 and up. I'm sure it's filled with AI text.
@AbandonedAmerica @johannab Yep. There's no way they got any part of the text.
@AbandonedAmerica @okwari yeah, it’s so depressing. I think all we can do is hang on to what’s human and try to keep each other afloat when the bubble bursts. We’re going through a forced (mal)adaptation in a massive social-cognitive scale and the AIpocalypse is going to take out our entire info sphere.
Wish I had the crystal ball to tell me how it will be shaped in the future dystopia, but someone made it agentic than rn out of tokens.
@johannab I honestly don't see a way of winning without destroying the existing models and setting guardrails for new ones and we all know that's not going to happen
@AbandonedAmerica I refuse to hit star on this, but thank you for sharing and I hope people will still manage to find you and find the difference
@almad thank you. I appreciate that. This project has never been an easy job and hopefully the luck that's got me this far won't quit just yet.
@AbandonedAmerica I appreciate you doing this. Labor of love has its clear signature, and it’s getting rarer and rarer…
@almad that is the truth. I think a lot of "labor of love" projects are vanishing off of the internet due to this type of stuff.
@AbandonedAmerica It was nice while it lasted.
My hope is that it’ll lead to resurrection of offline spaces for those venues.
And maybe even sufficiently shielded online communities will appear…
@almad that would be cool. I hope so too. But I think when we start looking away from our screens - if we do! - we're in for the unpleasant realization that third spaces are in a pretty bad state too
@AbandonedAmerica Which is a good start!
You can’t fix what you don’t consider broken :)
@AbandonedAmerica Shit like this makes me so angry and I really wish I was a billionaire because I would gladly fund every single lawsuit against these absolute scum. 😡
@retrosponge nobody gets to be a billionaire by being a decent human, I'm afraid
@AbandonedAmerica That's so messed up. I hate this for you. 😡
@lydialurch thank you. It's been a years-long battle against impersonators but it got harder and wasted more time every year, and that was before AI
Oct 20, 2026, 10:42 AM@AbandonedAmerica I am so sorry, I absolutely adored your work (in fact, I have one of the beautiful "Abandoned America" photo-books and look into it every now and then).
This shit is going to kill too many small artists' lifework.
I am so sorry 😔
@ics thank you for caring. I was having a moment of despair and anger about it last night but the world keeps moving, and I will too ❤️
@AbandonedAmerica
Fuckers.
@FritzAdalis yeah, that about sums up my feelings also
@AbandonedAmerica Agreed, all looks like slop (cover art, blurb style) and reported as such to Amazon, not that it'll help. But here in Europe, "Cole Morrow" doesn't come across as German at all.
@Etche_homo oh yeah, I noticed that too. I'm sure that attention to detail bodes well for the content of the book
If you have a registered trademark, doesn't Amazon accept that for flagging fakes?
I ask as someone who registered a trademark for that purpose but has never had to attempt that process
@elithebearded we'll see but I'm not hopeful. That's the part where I said that these people are registering in other countries where US trademark law doesn't apply
I wish you luck, because I'm sure this won't be easy
@elithebearded Amazon surprisingly agreed to remove it in the US. I'm shocked. Youtube refused to do anything about the channel there and I was expecting more of the same.
Huzzah on the small victory
@elithebearded when life gives you small victories, make small victoryade
@AbandonedAmerica fuck. even just the principle of being decent to each other. I will never understand the appeal of fake shit. I wasn't in to face swaps or moprhs either when this shit was just that. sorry 🙁
@scrottie thank you. As a pretty strict documentarian, I'm not a huge fan of artificiality either