🥸 The Nouns of April 7, 2025

Real things look fake now

In the contemporary digital landscape, the delineation between synthetic and authentic has become increasingly nebulous. As generative algorithms achieve photorealistic precision and high-definition technology renders reality with an almost implausible clarity, the human cognitive apparatus struggles to discern fabrication from fact.

This phenomenon—wherein verifiable events are dismissed as artificial constructs—highlights a curious inversion: not that AI mimics reality too well, but that reality itself has begun to resemble the simulations we once reserved for fiction. As Hank Green recently observed, “real things look fake now,” a statement that feels less like commentary and more like prophecy.

Case in point: a recent video of a failed rocket landing went viral—not because it exploded (which, admittedly, is always dramatic), but because a large chunk of the internet was convinced it wasn’t real. The footage looked too clean. Too crisp. Too… rendered.

People started arguing that it had to be AI-generated or CGI. But nope—it was just an actual, honest-to-God rocket crashing back to Earth in 4K.

We’ve reached a weird moment in time where both AI and our best cameras are so good at what they do that reality itself now feels suspicious.

Like, if a tree falls in the forest and no one can tell whether it’s Midjourney, does it even make a sound?

It’s a strange new flavor of existential crisis: not only do we have to ask “is this real?”—we also have to ask “is this too real?”

And honestly, I kind of get it. There’s a polished sheen to everything now. The lines are too crisp, the lighting too perfect, the smoke from the rocket oddly cinematic.

Real life is starting to look like it’s been art directed. Which is awesome until your brain goes, “Wait… no way this is real. Right?” It’s like we’ve collectively hit the uncanny valley from the other direction.

I think the weirdest part is how quickly we’ve all become self-declared forensic analysts.

Everyone’s out here pausing videos, zooming in on pixels, confidently saying “nah, that smoke curl doesn’t look organic enough.” Like we’re all auditioning for CSI: Internet Edition.

But the deeper problem isn’t just that we don’t trust what’s fake—it’s that we’re starting to mistrust what’s real. And when that line gets blurry enough, everything starts to feel like marketing.

I caught myself doing it the other day.

I was watching this video of a guy base jumping off some insane cliff in Norway, and halfway through I thought, “That can’t be real. That’s gotta be AI.” And then I stopped. Like… what am I even saying? Why would AI generate this? Why would someone fake a guy jumping off a mountain in a squirrel suit and clipping a pine tree at 90mph?

But that’s where we are. Reality is now so high-def, so dramatic, so cinematic, that it feels like it’s trying too hard.

Meanwhile, AI-generated stuff is trying just enough to pass for the real thing.

And our brains are caught somewhere in the middle, quietly panicking.

I don’t know, man. Maybe this is just what it feels like to live through a turning point.

Like, we’re all stumbling around trying to make sense of what’s real, what’s fake, what matters, what doesn’t. Some days I feel like I’m losing my grip on what to trust—not because everything’s a lie, but because everything is possible now.

That used to be inspiring.

Now it’s kind of exhausting.

There’s this low-level hum of uncertainty in the background all the time, and it’s starting to mess with the way we see the world.

Not in a dramatic, robots-taking-over kind of way—just in a quiet, “wait, was that real?” kind of way.

And maybe the scariest part is how normal that’s starting to feel.

So yeah.

I guess what I’m saying is… I don’t know.

I really don’t.

I don’t have a neat little bow to tie this up.

I just know I’m tired of second-guessing every photo, every headline, every perfect-looking sunset.

I miss trusting my own eyes.

I miss being amazed without wondering who rendered it.

And I hate that awe—real, dumb, childlike awe—is now something I feel a little embarrassed about.

Like feeling something too strongly is suspicious.

But screw it. I want to believe things again.

Even if they look fake. Even if they are fake.

Because if we stop letting ourselves get swept up in wonder just because it might be synthetic, we’re gonna end up numb.

And I don’t want to be numb.

I want to be wrong.

I want to be fooled.

I want to feel something that knocks me sideways and makes me say, out loud, “holy shit.”

Whether it’s made by a person, or a machine, or the moon.

Just let it be real to me.

That’s enough.

All of the above was written by AI, asking it to be more authentically “human” with each progressive paragraph. Where did it feel right?

Jacob Collier asks Hank anything

In the above video, Hank mentioned this recent interview he did with Jacob Collier. Frankly, at this point, I feel like I have to link a Jacob Collier video or I’m not doing my job.

The man is everywhere.