Instead, they made claims that "most art software uses AI" which is... patently not true. Photoshop is the only one I know of that DOES. Clip Studio - despite the claims made in the screenshot - does not. (They talked about introducing AI tools and there was so much backlash they walked it back.)

Okay, but the screenshots going around show the team taking a very flippant attitude towards it. If the team is promoting an artist who's using AI, they should be committed to saying "We don't support the use of AI and will look into this." If they DO support AI, well... that's an issue in itself.

The fact that one of the people who are ostensibly managing the artist in question is so supercilious about the quality control of the art they manage is pretty shady in and of itself.

For what it's worth, the final image in what you posted here is getting flagged by checkers as AI. YMMV on how much faith you put in those kind of detection tools, but there's a certain point at which people can't really help but call it like they see it, and this seems to be one of those cases.

Oh yessss 👀

To an extent, but what I'm saying more than that is that they tend to deal with problems by sweeping them under the rug instead of actually dealing with them because they don't want their "family friendly" image tainted by "drama" and scandal.

I think that is overcomplicating things. Either a con should allow minors, or it shouldn't. If a con is going to allow minors, its rules need to reflect that and be vigorously enforced. I think the growing trend of cons being minor-friendly but also having IDed adult-only spaces is a good thing.

Like if I'm at a convention that is for adults only, doing adult things, and someone pulls that crap, I can have the same response I have to the "no kink at pride" prudes when they pull out pictures of Folsom: this is not a "family friendly" space, and your crotch goblins aren't owed consideration.

The more adult-oriented cons, in contrast, seem to do a much better job of actually treating adults like adults. The biggest problem with "family friendly" spaces is
1) kids see it and decide "this is mine."
2) it enables so much of the pearl-clutching "think of the children" nonsense.

The uncomfortable discussion that people don't want to have is that there are a lot of people in the furry fandom who actually HAVE kids now. My biggest problem with "family friendly" cons is that they tend to be run by uwu happy escapism let's all be PAWSitive! people who ignore problems.

😘

The problem with that is that in order to create that state, they'd have to displace whoever's already on that land - they're certainly not going to be content with living in some uninhabited part of Antarctica.

Man, you're like *this close* to getting it.