Another trip into funhouse mirror Facebook.
HOLE FOBE
All hail the HOLE FOBE.
From Shrimp Jesus to 18-wheelers overflowing with babies, Facebook continues to fill to the brim with bizarre, algorithm-hungry AI-generated images. These strange images are published en masse by spammers, who affix the AI-spun creations with disjointed captions begging for likes and shares. Now, months into the phenomenon, it seems that certain themes have taken shape. Many of these images deal with themes of religion, often depicting Jesus in increasingly avant-garde interpretations; many picture soldiers and veterans; many attempt to depict people in poverty; while many more deal with babies and children. (There’s also a miscellaneous department, where things like Pitbull Mermaid fall.)
Another motif that’s emerged? Crying police officers lugging Bibles through rising floodwaters. Behold this recently-posted image, in which one such fake cop is pictured carrying what’s marked as a “HOLE FOBE” — an AI-mangled attempt at “Holy Bible” — in nearly-waist-deep waters.
“Why don’t pictures like this ever trend,” the poster laments in the caption, which they follow with a string of emojis (the image has racked up tens of thousands of reactions.) “Beautiful cabin crew,” the caption continues, before listing hashtagged names of celebrities (mostly celebrity women.)
Variations on the theme naturally include images of child police officers gripping a large golden cross in a rising flood. Moving stuff!
Room on the Raft
A trip to the comments section on a post like this shows that while some folks aren’t quite sold on the image, others were more convinced.
“Ah yes. The Hole Fobe,” reads one sarcastic comment. “Great book.”
“I love reading the Hole Pobe,” quipped another user.
“[Because] no one wants to hear the word of God,” countered another, presumably in response to the quandary of why photos like this don’t “ever trend.”
“Don’t cry lady…” added yet another Facebooker. “Lord is with u.”
Because Facebook is an undead land of bots and synthetic imagery, it’s hard to tell just how much engagement supposedly garnered by this post — currently over 46,000 likes and nearly 1,000 shares — is genuine.
Still, that posts like this continue to get picked up by Facebook’s algorithm feels like a grim sign of platform erosion for the social media site, which now feels more like an empty, chaotic funhouse for scammers than it does a website for humans. If only there were room on that HOLE FOBE for Facebook to escape the AI flood.
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