Welcome to Friday, futurists. 

It was supposed to be Gemini’s big week, but ChatGPT’s new image generation release upstaged Google once again, taking the internet by storm with a flood of aesthetic memes, with Studio Ghibli-themed memes leading the pack.

This happened as thousands of retailers, technologists, agencies, and brands converged at Shoptalk Spring to hear about the future of AI as it applies to their brands. 

We covered some of the main stage Day One content on this week’s podcast (on Spotify and Apple Podcasts), which is a wonderful breakdown of the mainstage misgivings and the luxe leanings of Gen X and Gen Z. Check it out on all podcast platforms (and on our YouTube Channel this weekend).

Dork Mode, Revisited. 

"That which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art." — Walter Benjamin

In 2021, we predicted a future where the sterile sameness of web design would give way to something more whimsical, more personal—a "Dork Mode" (a take on Dark Mode) that would inject personality back into our digital experiences.

Now, in early 2025, that prophecy has materialized in spectacular fashion, though perhaps not in the way we anticipated. 

OpenAI's release of GPT-4o's image generation capabilities—announced by Sam Altman himself—has unleashed what Carly Ayres aptly calls "the Ghibli-fication of the internet"—a tsunami of Studio Ghibli-styled portraits flooding our feeds. What began with a single demonstration during OpenAI's livestream has morphed into a cultural phenomenon so powerful that, as Ayres notes, "The vibes got so high, OpenAI had to delay rollout to free users."

You’ve seen the memes; you don’t need to see them again. (Yes, some DTC-types are raving about the ad-creation “abilities” of the platform, but we’re Future Commerce, not ‘right now DTC corner’).

Instead, let’s focus on fulfilling the Future Commerce prophecy and aesthetic revolution of the web interface that this user-generated future might bring about.

This isn't merely about a new visual design trend—it's about control and personalization in an age of aesthetic homogeneity brought about by massive platforms who “won” the internet (Facebook, Google, Shopify, Amazon, et al), and the death of the ‘old’ internet which was handbuilt by users (Geocities, Angelfire, Stumbleupon, et al).

As Jimmy Apples recently mused on X, "Can we have a button we can click that the browser will just auto-change the content to x/y/z style?" This simple question strikes at the heart of our original Dork Mode thesis: users crave the ability to transform the mundane digital landscapes they inhabit daily.

When Given Everything, We Make the Same Thing

The irony, of course, is palpable. Given "create anything" capabilities, the internet collectively made the same thing. Ayres, the queen of the ‘not your normal website’ observes: "What's most telling isn't just what people made, but what they didn't... Given infinite possibility, we chose repetition."

This paradox reveals a deeper truth about human creativity in the algorithmic age—we don't necessarily want unlimited options; we want meaningful ones that we control.

When anyone can generate a passable Ghibli homage in seconds, the scarcity shifts from execution to conception, from craft to taste. — Carly Ayres

What we're witnessing here is precisely what Walter Benjamin foresaw in his seminal essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"—the dissolution of what he called the "aura" of original art. Except now, in the age of algorithmic reproduction, this process occurs at unprecedented speed and scale. Once the product of painstaking craftsmanship, the Ghibli aesthetic is instantly replicated millions of times, its cultural "aura points" (to borrow 2024's memetic currency) simultaneously inflated and devalued through mass distribution.

Meanwhile, the reaction from Studio Ghibli's legendary founder Hayao Miyazaki offers a sobering counterpoint. In a resurfaced 2016 clip, he declares: "I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself," adding that he would "never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all." His disgust highlights the tension between technological progress and artistic integrity—between what we can create instantly and what requires decades of painstaking craftsmanship.

This tension has sparked fascinating responses. Faisal Sayed developed a Chrome extension to purge Ghibli-style images from feeds entirely, while others debate the value shift occurring. 

What we're witnessing isn't just an aesthetic trend but the emergence of what we predicted: personalization as rebellion against digital uniformity. The "style button" Jimmy Apples envisions would transform not just how we see the web, but how we experience digital culture—shifting power from designers to users, from platforms to people.

The Dialectic of the Meme: When Aesthetic Becomes Currency

Even more intriguing is media theorist Ruby Justice Thelot's Lecture "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Slop"—an apparent nod to Dr. Strangelove that suggests a possible reversal of his previous stance at VISIONS Summit 2023 (you can view all VISIONS content with an FC Plus membership) regarding René Magritte's "The Tyranny of Images." This potential intellectual pivot hints at a broader reckoning within critical theory circles about AI-generated aesthetics. Meanwhile, users are already imagining how these aesthetic transformations might reinvent UI itself, embodying our concept of The Multiplayer Brand, where participatory design becomes the norm.

Aesthetic as meme is simultaneously problem and solution—a dialectic that defines our digital moment. It democratizes visual expression while commodifying it, creates community through shared visual language while homogenizing individual expression.

When everyone can generate the same Studio Ghibli portrait, the portrait becomes both meaningless and supremely meaningful—a badge of cultural participation that signals both conformity and a desire to break free from it.

This is the paradoxical culmination of Dork Mode: personalization at scale that somehow results in collective aesthetic movements, where the very tools that enable individuality inevitably produce new forms of sameness. 

Which is precisely where we’ve been for 10+ years with eCommerce thanks to the likes of Shopify starter themes. 

The true rebellion isn't in the filter itself, but in recognizing this cycle and finding ways to playfully subvert it—to consciously participate in the simulacrum while maintaining an ironic distance from it. Dork Mode, in its evolved form, may be less about returning to a pre-digital authenticity than about navigating a world where aura itself has become algorithmic.

— Phillip