The other day at her Substack, User Mag, Taylor Lorenz reported

“MY NEIGHBOR THREW EGGS AT MY CAR BECAUSE IT ‘BLOCKED THE VIEW’ OF HIS HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS,” a post shared to a page called Movie Character with 257,000 followers posted.

The exact same car egging copypasta has been posted by hundreds (if not thousands) of Facebook pages reaching millions of collective followers with names like USA Story, Volleyball Women, Top Trends, Love Style, and US Democracy. The posts nearly all include links to scammy SEO websites in the comments boosting to articles about the car egging, likely to generate money from the display ads served on the page.

“The newest AI slop on Facebook exploits suburban fear,” October 29, 2024

She notes,

The story is written from the point of view of a single mom with newborn twins who had her car smeared in eggs by her neighbor after she blocked his Halloween decor. The end of the post talks about taking revenge and is accompanied by an AI generated image of a car covered in eggs.

Wait. Everything about the story, including those violins in the background, screams HOAX.

Lorenz quotes CUNY media studies prof Jamie Cohen who characteristically worries, in Lorenz’s words, that “unlike the generic AI slop before it, this one seemed to be inciting fear and distrust in people about their neighbors.”

Well maybe. But if people really believe their neighbors would do something like this (and haven’t moved), the damage has long since been done and the rest is sequel.

But Lorenz also notes, quite sensibly, that rumors of ill-doings around Halloween are a cultural tradition. Indeed, I well remember the scares of 70 years ago (children swallowing razor blades hidden in wrapped candy — or just plain disappearing — were a staple).

Why not just forget Halloween? If you are a Catholic Christian, could you try going to Mass on All Saints Day (November 1) instead?

Some of us worry that overblown concerns around deepfakes and assorted AI-generated bilge can be exploited to give government and other big actors what they most covet right now: control over information. They will fail but there will be too many casualties in the meantime.

The egg-decked car and its many Facebook twins are certainly a sight though.