What’s almost as terrifying as an AI World-Takeover? …an AI Fake-Makeover 🧼.
🤖 What is JEN_AI?
A vibe-hack-challenge blogcast series about AI, media, and what it means to be human in the age of generative-artificial-intelligence-(GenAI)-everything. Each episode is an experiment. This one? A makeover. Of sorts.
// It’s JEN_AI Challenge #12: MAKEOVER. This episode:
The Fake Fakeover: AI-assisted fake-makeover attempts with virtual tools like headshot generators, makeup-glowups & wardrobe try-ons
The Real Reel: I chat about style IRL and get a work-wardrobe-refresh with Amazon glamazon & bestie Hara Gavriliadi
“As If!”: I vibecode a “like, totally Clueless” style-makeover app inspired by an iconic 90s movie
Bonus: we take notes from celeb beauty, drag-queen philosophy, and Queer-Eye’s makeover show
// WELL THE STRUGGLE IS REAL AT LEAST
So somebody gave me some excellent advice: “Always video your podcast, even from the beginning.” And I tried. Briefly. But then I caught sight of the husk of a woman hunched over my webcam and thought: absolutely not.
I looked in the black mirror of my screen and after five years of parenting (and roughly five different clothing sizes), I could (almost) see two things:
A baby-stained ill-fitting sweatshirt from Tesco optimistically emblazoned with the slogan “Limitless Possibilities”
A scratched-up pair of fugly glasses
I was reminded of Sheng Wang’s Netflix stand-up comedy special, when he talks about buying clothes at Costco: realising he has become someone who “does what he needs to survive, but isn’t afraid.. to die.”
So it’s time for a challenge: Can I fake a glow-up using AI tools, while getting a little real help from a friend? Can I finally look like a functioning human again? Can you deepfake confidence? Can I video-record this blogcast without speaking like a robot, and actually look at the camera? Spoiler: yeah, no. maybe.
💅 Artificial Makeover
All the best transformations start from within, but who’s got time for that? Let’s start by putting the superficial in artificial:
// Beauty is in the AI of the beholden
FaceTune (the OG - I had to!) - there’s definitely a sheen of airbrushing but yeah, it’ll make you into a smoking-hot cartoon for sure. But here are some restrained, work-friendly outputs:
Aragon.ai for fake headshots - this was a recommendation, but way too expensive and the results were still kinda.. fake. Also a bit “2010s-work-attire”. Don’t do it.
Google’s virtual try-on & glow-ups: sadly these aren’t out in the UK yet and I’m trying to be good and only use tools I can access publicly legitimately. But if you’re in the US - check out Doppl & Virtual Try-On in Search
🧪 it’s a JEN_AI FAKEOVER - my vibecoded “LIKE, TOTALLY CLUELESS MAKEOVER” app-website
So yeah, TikTok filters aside - I felt like I wanted more. Time for a like, totally, unnecessary AI prototype homage to the outfit-chooser app from the 90s movie-remake of Jane Austen’s novel Emma: “Clueless”. HELL YEAH
Tools used: Google’s Firebase Studio for vibecoding plus AI Studio Chat for brainstorming the project brief (=“prompt”). I’ll spare you all the details this time but shout if you want to know more.
I had so much fun with this but 1) I lost the battle for pixelated leopard print, RIP my cool-retro design system and 2) as the app’s style suggestions are based on analysing how you look, this is a PR nightmare waiting to happen.
🦋 Boardroom Butterflies
I called in my friend Hara Gavriliadi – tech-business glamazon, Amazon Studio Youtube host, and style whisperer. She dragged me into a real shop and chose me some real back-to-work clothes. She reminded me I’m still in there somewhere (my body, not the shop). And she illegally recorded a podcast interview with me in a glam hotel co-working space.
👗 Hara’s Style Hacks
Here are a few teasers from our interview chat (accompanied by a baby! Which is why I’m out of shot):
I asked her to share some style advice. She said: “I stopped giving advice. We’re not equipped to tell people what to do. You already know. You just need time to hear it.”
Style = You = Your Power. “What makes me feel powerful is color.” Whether leading C-suite workshops in hot pink or rocking white trainers with a purple suit, her style mantra is along the lines of authenticity over conformity.
We’re past the heels-for-approval era. “We don’t dress for other people. We dress for ourselves.”
On personal transformation: “Just pause. That’s the hardest and most powerful thing.” Slowing down helped her reconnect with what really makes her feel like herself.
Wardrobe as not just performance, but empowerment. A bright wardrobe, a calm home, and the realisation that being powerful and vulnerable isn’t a contradiction.
💖 QUEER A-EYE
I couldn’t do a makeover challenge without mentioning my maternity-leave-guilty-pleasure Netflix series: Queer Eye, the life-makeover show hosted by 5 talented gay men showing up to help someone feel seen, stylish, and safe. I used to put it on in the background and cry: The single mother of four with two jobs, holding it all together. The black lesbian finding her feet after her family threw her out. The hope-crushed man struggling to get out of bed.
The Fab Five weren’t just giving people glow-ups, they were giving them permission take care of themselves, and be taken care of. In my own misguided (or “clueless”) digital way, this episode is my small nod to that kind of care.
Don’t be a drag, just be a queen.
I remember watching drag-queen legend mama RuPaul talking about feeling that celeb women were sometimes uncomfortable with drag because it shone a mirror on how beauty is made - with lighting, cosmetic procedures, stylists, make-up artists, filters and retouching. Drag queens just do it openly. There’s a perceived loss of mystique when anyone (regardless of gender, and especially with a budget) can look like a star with the right toolkit. Drag exposes that artifice. AI might just.. automate it?
If RuPaul taught us anything, it’s that “we’re all born naked and the rest is drag.”
So… did it work? Am I.. ‘made-up’ now?
Kinda. At least I now have several non-ruined right-size work-suitable outfits. But the fake LinkedIn photo probably needs to go.
SOMETIMES, we dress for the person we wish we were. Putting on a look can be a performance, call it- ‘marketing’ -even. And that’s not shallow - it’s storytelling. Sometimes, we use paintbrushes (digital or real) and trickery to present our best selves. Sometimes, we just want someone (or something?) to say,
“You can - and you will - feel like yourself again.”
🎧 SOuNDTRACK(s)
Playlist: The JEN_AI Mixtape
“MANTRA” – JENNIE (the awesome Jennie Kim from Korean pop supergroup BLACKPINK)
“Like JENNIE” - JENNIE
📚 REFERENCES
My vibecoded “Like, Totally Clueless Makeover” AI glow-up app-website → *here*
Cher Horowitz’s wardrobe-app in the movie “Clueless” (which is a movie-remake of Jane Austen’s “Emma” novel).
Hara Gavriliadi ( Amazon on YouTube / Bestie / Style queen)
Sheng Wang on Costco clothes-shopping (Netflix: Sweet and Juicy)
Google AI tools including Doppl, Google Search with Virtual Try-on, Google Firebase Studio, Google AI Studio
Queer Eye reboot (Netflix) life makeover show with the Fab Five
“Don’t be a drag, just be a queen” is a line from “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga
Shoutout to NY Times’ Kevin Roose’s glow-up on Hard Fork Live (dang he beat me to it!)
⚠️ DISCLAIMER & THANKS
An extra-huge thanks to Hara Gavriliadi for years of loving friendship and always being an inspiration. The other makeovers are mostly artificial, ill-advised, and certainly not approved by Queer Eye’s Fab Five.
If you checked out this week’s episode, thanks for listening, and I’d love you to:
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JEN_AI is produced by Jenni Munroe using publicly released tools (incl. Gemini & ChatGPT for edits & brainstorming). Not endorsed by Google. #myviews
#jenai #GenAI #deepfakeit #cluelessmakeover
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