The extremely online report: January 2025
A month of chaos, comebacks, and AI culture wars
January usually brings dry challenges and ambitious resolutions. Instead, 2025 kicked off with AI controversies, startup stunts, and the chaotic energy that comes when technology moves faster than our ability to process it. Let’s dive in.
Meta’s AI influencer fiasco
Meta rang in the new year with what might be its shortest-lived product launch ever. Early January, Instagram users started seeing AI-generated personas—like “Liv,” a self-described “Black queer mom”—appearing in their feeds. Turns out, Meta had been experimenting with AI influencers back in 2023, and a few just happened to resurface. The backlash was immediate, especially when users realized they couldn’t block these AI interlopers. Within hours, Meta pulled the plug.
Even loyalists were rattled. Former Instagram Design Manager Rich Arnold summed it up: “I will carry a lot of water for the IG family but yikeroonies, guys.”
DeepSeek rattles the AI ecosystem
While OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic were busy battling over benchmarks, a Chinese AI startup blindsided the industry. DeepSeek-R1, an open-source model from DeepSeek, shot to #1 in the U.S. App Store overnight, outpacing ChatGPT—all while allegedly costing a fraction to develop ($5.6M vs. competitors’ billions).
Nvidia’s stock dropped 13% in pre-market trading as investors reacted to what some called “AI’s Sputnik moment.” Marc Andreessen weighed in, calling it “one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen.” In a world where the next breakthrough model is always two weeks away, perhaps the real value isn’t in the models, but in being the default way humans interact with AI.
Gassed up
What’s better than launching a successful app? Launching one to spite your enemies. Enter Explode, an iMessage-integrated app for disappearing photos and texts with screenshot-blocking capabilities. Created by Nikita Bier (of Gas app fame), it came with an unusually direct motivation: revenge against Snapchat.
Backstory: Bier’s previous app, Gas, was allegedly kneecapped by Snapchat in 2023. Now, he’s back with a product engineered for maximum virality—and only the sender needs to have the app installed. Perhaps most interesting is how Nikita leveraged many native iOS features for growth, including live activity.
People were mad that The Brutalist used AI
Cinema entered the AI discourse this month when The Brutalist, a critically acclaimed film, came under fire for its use of AI. Director Brady Corbet used Respeecher to refine actors’ Hungarian accents and GenAI renderings for the film’s final sequence. The internet debated whether AI-assisted performances should qualify for awards. Corbet defended the decision, arguing that AI only enhanced pronunciation—not performances.
Some saw it as harmless post-production cleanup. Others saw a slippery slope. Newsletter pal Judson Collier tweeted: “There are so many garbage uses of AI in media you cannot dunk on The Brutalist for making fine tooth adjustments to make a great, original piece of work.” The real question isn’t if AI will be part of filmmaking—it’s whether we’ll know (or care) when it is.
PMF or DIE brings reality TV to startups
Tech Bros podcast hosts Jordan Hays and John Coogan launched the ultimate startup stunt: PMF or DIE. The premise? Lock two founders in an apartment with $25K, a WiFi connection, and 90 days to build a $1M business. The entire process is being livestreamed, turning startup-building into something between Shark Tank and Big Brother. Will they build the next unicorn or just an expensive content farm? Either way, great if you’re looking for a late-night co-working companion.
New year, same content cycles
It wouldn’t be January without the predictable parade of in/out lists, intention-setting posts, and creative manifestos—and I love them all. From Jasmine Sun’s ins and outs to Yancey Strickler’s “20 things I want creatively in 2025,” these annual rituals of digital rebirth provide comforting structure amid technological chaos. Jordan Singer called for more unfiltered work. Ruby Justice Thelot’s “New Rules 2025” reminded us that every year is a fresh start, even if we just end up doomscrolling through it.
Six memos for the future of digital creation
And in case you missed it, I contributed to Figma’s “Six memos for the future of digital creation,” writing about The Rise of the Generalist. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium, this piece explores what it means to design and build in an era of shifting skills. Worth a read if you, too, feel allergic to specialization.
In other news
CDC deleted its historical archive (internet archivists are on the case)
Trump announced a $500B AI infrastructure investment called “Stargate”
Someone made an infinitely generating “tar pit” to trap AI training bots
Worth your time
The Public Domain Image Archive (10k+ historical images, free to use)
Why your marketing sucks by Elan Miller
THE CONTENT CREATOR AS (ALGORITHMIC) FOLK ARTIST by Ruby Justice Thelot
How to engineer attention, a Nikita Bier masterclass in virality
That’s it for January’s extremely online report. What did I miss? What did you love? What made you cringe? Here’s to a February that’s just as chaotic. Onward.
—Carly