Jake Paul Comes Out and Breaks Reality
Celebrity AI deepfakes, synthetic Queerbaiting and the price we all pay. I first covered this topic in 2023’s The Rape of Henry Cavill, about semi-realistic still images. We now have photorealistic AI video.
Jake Paul Comes Out and Breaks Reality
Over the weekend, AI videos of Jake Paul flooded my TikTok feed. The hyper-realistic clips showed the boxer and influencer coming out as Gay, putting on makeup, and wearing women’s clothes. They were rendered with the new Sora 2 AI video software, released just last week. The videos have gained millions of views, and there are so many that Jake’s fiancée filmed her own TikTok addressing the “sus” clips.
In them, Jake twirls in lace and silk, pirouettes in ballet tights, blows kisses at the camera, and flirts with his boyfriend. He dons a lace-front wig for “get ready with me” videos, shows off his makeup at the club, or wipes a tear after coming out as Trans. Trained on makeup tutorials, OnlyFans dances, and coming-out videos, the AI captures the tone perfectly. The result has an eroticism and camp which have made the clips instant viral sensations.
Jake is the perfect poster boy for this tech. As a massive YouTube star, there’s endless data for AI engines to scrape, producing eerily realistic results that double as free advertising. He’s polarizing enough that everyone finds something to enjoy. Half the audience celebrates him as a symbol of the manosphere and straight bravado; the other half dislikes him for the same reasons. Watching him twirl in a maid outfit, everyone gets a cathartic laugh. The giggles make it easier to ignore the tired homo- and transphobia and the ethical minefield we’re walking deeper into.
Full video gallery for paid subscribers.
These videos shouldn’t even exist. Sora technically bans deepfakes without consent, but enforcement is little more than an honor system. Its own ad campaign promotes a “cameo” feature where users can make deepfakes of friends, starring OpenAI CEO Sam Altman performing impossible feats. TikTok’s notoriously strict censors could remove the clips, yet the platform has chosen not to. The guardrails aren’t holding and it no longer seems like anyone wants them to. Both platforms, and Jake himself, benefit from the virality.
These clips are a volatile mix of repressed sexuality and juvenile humor, cooked by and for adolescent boys. In the past two years, synthetic revenge porn and deepfakes have already wreaked havoc in schools. Those were just still images. What happens when we normalize instant, hyperrealistic, non-consensual deepfakes to that crowd on the largest platform on the planet?
Which leaves us with the same harrowing question as this technology races ahead: what, and who, is next?
Video gallery: 20 Jake Paul AI clips
