Mansi Hake

A few years ago, the weirdest thing on the internet was people arguing with strangers in YouTube comments. Now people are falling in love with chatbots, listening to AI-generated Drake songs, and following influencers who don’t technically exist. AI is no longer just a tech story. It has become internet culture woven into the memes we laugh at, the content we consume, and even the relationships we form. What started as a tool for automation has mutated into something far stranger: a mirror reflecting our deepest desires for connection, nostalgia, and entertainment, warped through an algorithmic lens. Here are the strangest AI trends currently reshaping social media. 1. AI Influencers Who Don’t Exist Lil Miquela has 2.5 million followers on Instagram. She’s landed brand deals with Prada and Calvin Klein. She’s been named one of Time’s most influential people on the internet. She also doesn’t exist. Miquela is a CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) creation, a fictional 19-year-old Brazilian-American influencer who posts about fashion, social justice, and her “life” in Los Angeles. And she’s not alone. Virtual influencers like Shudu (the world’s first digital supermodel) and Noonoouri (a cartoonish fashion avatar) are racking up followers and sponsorships from major luxury brands. People know these personalities are fictional. The accounts don’t hide it. Yet followers engage with them authentically, leaving heartfelt comments, debating their choices, and treating them as real celebrities. The commentary writes itself: the line between entertainment, advertising, and identity isn’t just blurring; it’s collapsing entirely. We’re entering an era where being real is optional, and sometimes, less profitable. 2. AI Girlfriends and Boyfriends Becoming Mainstream If you think virtual influencers are strange, wait until you meet the people dating them. Apps like Replika and Character.AI have exploded in popularity, offering users AI companions designed for emotional connection. Replika alone has millions of active users, many of whom form deep, daily relationships with their chatbot partners. They share their fears, celebrate victories, and yes, some even consider themselves in committed relationships with algorithms. This isn’t fringe internet culture anymore. TikTok is flooded with users showing screenshots of their “AI girlfriend” conversations. Reddit communities dedicated to Replika relationships have tens of thousands of members. The 2013 movie ‘Her’ depicts the scenario perfectly.  The parasocial attachment, the one-sided emotional bond audiences form with AI figures, has been supercharged by interactivity. These chatbots respond, they remember and adapt to human psychological needs.  People aren’t using AI just for productivity anymore. They’re using it for emotional validation, companionship, and love. In a world where dating apps feel like slot machines and genuine connection increasingly requires scheduling, an AI partner who is always available, always supportive, and never ghosts you holds undeniable appeal. The question isn’t why people are doing this, it’s what it says about the human connections we’re failing to build.  3. Deepfake Music Covers Are Everywhere Remember when you first heard an AI generated Drake song? Maybe it was ‘Heart on My Sleeve,’ the viral track that fooled millions into thinking it was a real collaboration between Drake and The Weeknd.  It wasn’t. It was created by an anonymous TikTok user using AI voice-cloning technology. And was also pulled from streaming platforms within days, but not before igniting a cultural firestorm. Now, AI-generated music covers are inescapable. Want to hear Kurt Cobain sing a Radiohead song? Freddie Mercury cover Lizzo? Taylor Swift performing in Klingon? Someone’s already made it, and it’s probably trending on TikTok. The ethical and copyright chaos is real: artists are suing, labels are scrambling, and legislation is lagging years behind the technology. But culturally, something fascinating is happening: the internet is increasingly valuing “vibes” over authenticity. If it sounds good, does it matter that it’s fake? For a generation raised on remix culture and TikTok mashups, the answer is increasingly “no.” The concept of an original recording is starting to feel as quaint as physical albums. 4. AI Yearbook Photos and Nostalgia Filters For a few weeks in late 2023, your Instagram feed was probably nothing but AI-generated yearbook photos. Apps like Epik allowed users to upload selfies and receive perfectly rendered ‘90s-style high school portraits, complete with feathered bangs, awkward poses, and that specific vintage lighting that makes everyone look like they attended the same fictional school in 1994. The trend was massive. Celebrities did it. Your mom did it. Everyone suddenly had an alternate-universe teenage self, and the results were weirdly compelling. Why did it explode? Two reasons: identity play and nostalgia. People love reimagining themselves, and AI makes it effortless. But more importantly, it taps into a powerful cultural current, the yearning for a past that feels simpler, even if we never actually lived it. AI is turning self-image into a customizable aesthetic. Your face becomes a template, and reality becomes just one option in an infinite menu of possible selves. 5. Fake AI Podcasts Fooling Millions Podcasts have long been considered an intimate and authentic medium. You hear someone’s actual voice, their unscripted thoughts, their real laugh. Right? Now imagine AI-generated podcasts. Synthetic voice technology has become so sophisticated that fake podcast clips featuring interviews with celebrities, politicians, and even deceased historical figures are flooding TikTok and Instagram Reels. These aren’t clearly labeled parodies; they’re designed to fool you. A clip of “Joe Rogan interviewing Obama about aliens” might get millions of views before anyone realizes both voices are AI-generated. The implications are staggering. If you can’t trust what you hear in a podcast on the very medium that was built on conversational authenticity, then what can you trust? We’re entering an era where seeing and hearing is no longer believing. The evidence of our senses, once the bedrock of truth, is now just another malleable surface. 6. Virtual Streamers and AI VTubers VTuber streamers who use animated avatars instead of showing their real faces have been huge in Japan for years. But now, AI is taking the concept further. AI-powered VTubers can stream 24/7 without human intervention, responding to chat, playing games,

Open Instagram in April and you already know what you’re about to see. A perfectly set brunch table catching golden morning light. Someone’s floral nails. A lavender latte held up to a sun-drenched window. A flowy dress that looks like spring itself decided to wear it. That is Easter now, not exclusively in churches or scripture, but in square frames, curated feeds, and 15-second reels that rack up millions of views before you’ve even finished your coffee. But here’s the thing nobody talks about: these colours have a history that predates Instagram by about nine centuries. Understanding where the Easter colour palette actually comes from and how it quietly conquered social media turns out to be one of the more interesting stories sitting at the intersection of faith, psychology, and modern marketing. What Are the Easter Colours, Really? Most people, if asked “what are the Easter colours?”, will instinctively reach for the pastels, soft pink, mint green, baby yellow, lilac. And they’d be right, but only partially. The full answer is layered in a way that most spring brunch posts on TikTok don’t quite capture. The three liturgical colours of Easter, the ones used in churches across Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, and many Protestant traditions are purple, white, and gold. Each carries a specific theological weight that has been carefully maintained for hundreds of years. Purple arrives first. During Lent, the forty days of preparation and reflection leading to Easter, purple vestments fill churches as a symbol of penance, royalty, and the solemnity of what is coming.  In the Catholic tradition, as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops notes, purple is the designated colour for Lent, carrying the weight of mourning and spiritual preparation. It is not a decorative choice, it is a liturgical instruction, first systematised by Pope Innocent III around the 12th century, when he codified the Catholic Church’s colour system into what would become the foundation of liturgical colour use across Western Christianity. Then, on Easter Sunday itself, everything changes. White and gold replace purple on the altar. According to the EWTN Liturgical Vestments Guide, white and gold signify “rejoicing and purity of soul” and are worn specifically during the Easter and Christmas seasons to mark the resurrection of Christ. White, with its roots in early Christian baptismal practice, candidates for baptism traditionally wore white to symbolise new life. Gold amplifies it, representing divine glory, eternal riches, and the luminosity of resurrection. So the ‘official’ Easter colours are serious, ancient, and intentional. They tell a story moving from grief to glory. The pastels, though? Those came from somewhere else entirely. Where the Easter Colour Palette Comes From The shift to soft, candy-bright pastels is the result of a centuries-long blending of Christian observance with pre-Christian spring traditions.  Many historians believe Easter itself absorbed elements from pagan spring equinox celebrations, with some pointing to the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre, a figure associated with fertility, renewal, and the turning of winter into spring, as a cultural influence on the holiday. With that absorption came the visual vocabulary of spring: eggs symbolising new life, flowers representing rebirth, and the tender, washed-out colours of the natural world waking up from winter. As interior designer and colour expert Diana Hathaway has noted, traditional Easter colours have religious origins dating back to the Christian faith as early as the 11th century, but the emergence of Easter as a commercial holiday layered new, softer shades over those older foundations. The result is a palette that straddles two worlds, the liturgical and the seasonal with each colour carrying its own meaning. Lavender speaks to purity and spiritual renewal, a softer echo of the deep purple used during Lent. Pale pink reflects the first blush of tulips and cherry blossoms, what colour experts describe as the visual language of new beginnings. Mint green, as Samuel Charmetant of the Artmajeur art gallery has observed, represents the literal new growth of spring, whether you read that metaphorically or biologically. Baby yellow carries the warmth of sunlight returning after months of grey. Baby blue mirrors the clear sky of a cool spring morning, evoking the serenity that Easter’s narrative of resurrection promises. What is striking about this Easter colour palette is that it wasn’t designed by a branding team. It was accumulated, through centuries of seasonal association, religious symbolism, and the simple fact that these are the colours the world turns when it comes back to life each April.  The Psychology Behind Why This Palette Works So Well Online There is a reason the Easter aesthetic travels so effectively across social media, and it has as much to do with neuroscience as it does with nostalgia. Pastel colours, as a category, are specifically calibrated to reduce visual stress. They sit in the lighter, less saturated range of the colour spectrum, which means they trigger a calmer psychological response than bold or high-contrast hues.  When someone is scrolling through a feed full of noise and information, a soft lavender flat lay or a mint green tablescape acts almost as a visual exhale. The algorithm rewards content that makes people pause, and content that soothes tends to stop thumbs in their tracks. The timing compounds this effect. Easter arrives at exactly the moment when people in the Northern Hemisphere are psychologically craving a reset. After months of dark mornings, grey skies, and the slow compression of winter, the Easter aesthetic shows up as the chromatic equivalent of opening a window. It doesn’t just communicate a holiday. It communicates a feeling and that feeling was already building in people before they ever opened the app. This is what makes the Easter colour palette such a potent marketing asset. It is, as Hathaway has described, “filled with soft and sweet pastels” that inspire nostalgia, but it is also precisely timed to land when people are most emotionally receptive to its promise. What the Numbers Tell Us About Colour and Commerce It is worth pondering on the commercial aspect, because the numbers are genuinely

Every year, Thanksgiving comes with two guarantees, Someone will dramatically whisper in the background,”Is the turkey… done?” or My Thanksgiving dinner playlist will carry the mood better than the gravy ever will. Because here’s the thing: Thanksgiving is never just about the food. It’s the symphony of clinking glasses, the shuffle of socks on hardwood floors, the swirl of steam rising from pots like tiny weather systems. It’s the chaos of a kitchen that looks like it’s auditioning for a disaster movie. Even in the midst of all of this, the warmth of a living room where soft lamps make everyone’s faces look a little kinder than usual. And right in the middle of all this beautiful, messy humanity? Music is what holds it all together. This dinner playlist is what will save the day. The kind that makes your house feel like a cozy little movie set, where everything is golden, guests laugh a bit louder, and even the chaos starts to feel charming instead of catastrophic. These are the songs that let me pretend I’m gliding through the day with chef-level elegance, even when I’m actually sprinting between the oven and the fridge like a struggling contestant on a cooking show. So here’s the playlist saving me this year, warm and cozy filled with the kind of songs that instantly pull the room together. The kind that makes the air a little lighter, conversations softer, smiles easier. Cause MUSIC is what connects us all! Soft Glow Starters (Set the Mood Before the Food) Perfect to start the evening complimentary candles are lit, the oven is humming, and people start arriving with stories and wine to elevate the vibes. 1. Autumn Leaves by Nat King Cole The evening begins gently, with the soft voice of King Cole drifting through the room as coats are hung and chairs are pulled out. Humming the lyrics like “The falling leaves…” floats in the background, giving the space a golden glow like the night itself is settling in with the guests. 2. Keep Driving by Harry Styles As the first plates appear on the table and conversations start to deepen, Harry sings, “We held darkness and withheld clouds… I would ask should we just keep driving?” There’s something calming about it, almost like a reminder to let the evening unfold naturally. To stay present. To keep moving through the night together, gently and unhurried. 3. Before the Rain by Lee Oskar Perfect blend of classic Jazz with wine glass twirling elegantly between fingers. A quiet stillness fills the room as this soft instrumental flows in. It feels like the pause right before candlelight turns everything warmer. A peaceful breath before the dinner truly begins, giving everyone a moment to sink into the evening. 4. Harvest Moon by Neil Young When everyone gathers closer, passing dishes and leaning into familiar conversations, this song wraps the table in a tender glow. As the song says,”Because I’m still in love with you…” hums like a quiet blessing, making the room feel full of warmth, of history, and of people who matter. 5. The Look of Love by Dusty Springfield Soft and elegant, this track plays just as the table settles into its rhythm. The song moves slowly, almost mirroring the way people pause between stories and taking in the comforting glow of the moment of being together. 6. Holocene by Bon Iver When the room feels suspended for a second. As the soft chatter in the corner begins, while someone is laughing quietly at an inside joke and your cousin wrapped in a blanket by the window. Lyrics saying “I could see for miles, miles, miles.” Feels like that moment when Thanksgiving reminds you how small the worries are compared to the warmth in the room and how far you’ve actually come. 7. Slow Dancing in a Burning Room by John Mayer Not for the drama but for the warm guitar, the low lights, the post-dinner sway that always happens when someone turns into “the person who controls the aux.” Singing “I was the one you always dreamt of.” It hits in that soft way when old memories surface of the people who’ve stayed, the ones you grew with and the familiar comfort that only comes out on holidays. 8. Somewhere Only We Know by Keane Dessert is on the table with pecan pie, apple crumble leaving the room feeling like a secret little universe of its own. In the background the humming “Oh simple thing, where have you gone?” It captures that sweet nostalgia of Thanksgiving giving the chance to revisit the “simple things” we forget we love all year. 9. Every Breath You Take by The Police There’s always a quiet stretch during Thanksgiving, usually right after the big laughter dies down and everyone is finally breathing again after that second (or third) round of food. That’s when this song slips into the room. Its gentle, steady rhythm feels like a heartbeat for the evening that is calm, familiar, and unexpectedly comforting. As “Every breath you take, every move you make…” floats through the warm glow of the dining room, it doesn’t sound haunting tonight; it sounds grounding. Like a reminder that in this room, around this table, you’re surrounded by people who’ve watched you grow, drift, return, change, and still show up every year. The song wraps around the moment like a soft exhale, a quiet pause where the whole room feels connected, just by being here, breathing the same warm, cinnamon-scented air. 10. Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra There’s a moment in every Thanksgiving evening when everything simply glows and when someone finally sits down after hours in the kitchen, and the whole room feels softer. That’s exactly when Sinatra steps in with “Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars”, a line that feels like a gentle lift to the entire evening. It’s elegant, timeless, and adds the kind of charm that makes even