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So I came across a blog post while looking for some info about AI art. This whitemale author/blogger attempted to popularise the idea of a black mermaid in response to people being annoyed about the gingercide of The Little Mermaid.
The theory goes that if people are hostile to the idea of black mermaids, it's because there isn't enough art of black mermaids. And the reason there isn't enough art is because black people aren't privileged enough to devote time to such frivolous activities as being an artist. So he's resorted to using AI art to fill the void.
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Right off the bat, he mischaracterises his opposition. People for the most part
aren't saying mermaids can't be black. They're just resentful of the way that, out of all the potential black mermaids that Disney could have told their story about, they took the one who's
already a beloved character, and make her black. They will use said character's race to claim their soulless remake holds some kind of moral superiority over the original.
But enough preaching to the choir. Let's see some of that art!
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I did not cherrypick these.
For context, he used an older version of Midjourney for this (the latest available at the time of this post's creation), which seems to recognise that mermaids belong in an underwater setting, but struggles with the concept of drawing a person with a tail instead of legs. Hence why almost none of these "mermaids" have tails, and are almost all shown from the waist up.
It also seems to have confused black women's braided hair for tentacles, which is interesting.
And if you look at the filenames, you'll see that most of them have "attractive" and "beautiful" in the first few words of the prompt. I'd hate to see what a
non-attractive black mermaid looks like.
