This May or May Not Be Real
It’s 3:12am in a Tokyo alleyway. A single vending machine glows blue against the wet concrete. A woman in a red coat lights a cigarette under a flickering sign. No one else in sight. Suddenly, the vending machine powers down with a snap. The light dies. The alley goes pitch black. Her cigarette is the only thing still burning.
But here’s the thing...none of it happened.
Or maybe it did.
That’s the problem.
In a world starving for authenticity, we’re being served a never ending stream of curated moments, polished captions, and now...AI generated everything.
Words, images, voices. All beautifully produced. All plausible. But who made them? And why? The line between the real and the generated is dissolving and with it...trust.
This isn’t a rejection of AI...it’s a reckoning. A reminder that intent matters. That authorship gives work weight. Behind every photo, phrase or project, someone either cared...or didn’t. And we can feel the difference, even if we can’t explain it.
Jean-Paul Sartre once said, “If you seek authenticity for authenticity’s sake you are no longer authentic.”
“If you seek authenticity for authenticity’s sake you are no longer authentic.”
I don't know about you, but I think we dont need any more brands saying the same thing...we need more brands that actually mean what they say.
So what’s real?
Maybe a better question is...what still feels honest enough to believe?
Ouch.
