Just after this Karl Jobst video, I finally watched the Perifractic / Commodore "We remade our AI ad with real actors because we heard you, our most valued and loyal customers" video, wherein they themselves just splice various news reports together by-the-script which had caused their sales to go crazy and now they can hire human beings to remake the ad. No one could have predicted the engagement from the full backlash.

Just saying Retro Gamers. Of course no one could have predicted that there'd be any backlash to two professional actors with a history of fantastically polished and produced long-form videos "not being able to make" a commercial with either their own human talent and labor or to pay someone to create something.

Of course there would be backlash. This is two professional actors, who made the money they have by acting, saying that they could not produce a 30 second ad without making a warehouse full of video cards do it for them. These people have been making very professionally produced long-form engaging videos for years. For them to say "We don't have any money / resources and needed it fast so AI" is laughable.

Took me forever to find this Perifractic reply video. I just download stuff and watch it later. I never saw any of their other "controversy" nonsense, I just downloaded this one weeks ago and begrudgingly watched it because Karl is murdering my faith in human society.

Here. Youtube /really/ doesn't want people to share shorts. They're meant to disappear. Just like this controversy after throwing a YT short bone to the 3 or 4 people who really got mad.

https://youtube.com/shorts/88Gf5zYAw2g?si=3Of7OpMGsjdwJxlx

In any case, at the 45 second mark, he openly plays back the script these News Show People are reading by splicing together clips from different broadcasts.

So to the extent that any of this "Actually Happened", a lot of publicity happened for the phone. And probably as importantly, the manufacturer of that phone.

If indeed the deluge of local news coverage from around the country actually happened... I can't know, can I? They could just be actors, who knows. In any case IF that happened it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it was largely paid for by the phone manufacturer. The interest it would generate wouldn't only be for Peri and his Commodore phone. Regular people who want the flip phone but don't care about the niche retroey branding can just get one from the manufacturer.

I believe I am exactly the target of this ad / campaign, preemptive backlash. I'm the guy who pretty much wrote off Peri a while back but never unsubbed. I've watched him buy Commodore and start selling stuff, which has gotta be a net good. But there's a lot of smarm and weird BS and I mostly filter him out since around when they started doing the mailcall show. I was aware through Fark and whatnot that there was a Commodore branded flip phone they were releasing. Which is aimed exactly at me. Or at least my neighbor. I had Ataris. I don't fully trust Atari (and Intellivisions apparently) current "IP rightsholders" either.

But I've recently left the 100 hour week hamster wheel and have no need for a $400 replacement when Google decides I can't upgrade my Pixel 8 anymore. It's great, and they were like relatively cheap, but even still I don't need a $400 phone. I want to stream to my car stereo from an Android app, which I think is doable on his thing, I dunno, I was going to look but I really don't need any phone and if I did I'd just get a normal one from the manufacturer probably. I did also see the TAC-2 short and briefly questioned whether I should spend $50 on a joystick I already have an original example of which still works just fine. Gotta have backups you know.

I fuckin' hate the future.

Update:

Wait a second fuck! That flip phone thing COSTS $400? Absolutely not. Fuck me.