A friend of mine asked recently what living with panic and anxiety is like. I described it as a sort of hidden weight, which develops gradually into a quiet trauma. Because I have lived with my condition since the mid 1990s, I am unfortunately quite familiar with the concept.
After I gave my friend the answer, though, I realized… it could apply to any chronic condition, such as fibromyalgia, cancer, depression, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and so on. They all share the same hidden burden.
So here’s what I told my friend. I nicknamed it, “The Backpack Theory”.
You Asked Me to Describe Anxiety and Panic.
I will try. Having chronic anxiety, or an anxiety disorder, is like carrying an invisible backpack full of enormous books. It weighs you down, and everyone can see you are struggling beneath the weight. Except no one can see the actual backpack. So they stare and wonder why you are trembling, faltering, looking so strained.
Some days the backpack has just a few books. Other days, it feels like the whole damn library. But you still must carry it; the backpack is strapped to you, like it or not. So you forge onward, staggering beneath its weight, because you simply have no choice.
Some days you feel utterly overwhelmed. You say to yourself, “I wish I were dead, I cannot handle this backpack, it is killing me.” And that is when you become desperate and a little bit crazy. You start thinking about hurting yourself, or perhaps doing drugs, or drinking. Personally, I don’t do drugs or drink, but many people do.
When that happened to me, several years ago, I said this has to stop. I’ve had enough. So I made a vow to myself that I would seek treatment, and stick with it, no matter what. Because I realized, after going through this misery for so many years, that I deserved to feel better. I deserved to get these damn books off my back. … At least a few of them, anyway.
I still carry that backpack, but it’s lighter now that I’m getting help.
So that’s what it’s like.
Spread Awareness and Understanding
I’m posting my experience here with the hope of spreading awareness and understanding. Anxiety, depression, and other chronic conditions have a devastating and often invisible cost: a lasting and usually-unacknowledged trauma.
Contributing Factors
Part of the problem is, most doctors are trained to treat the outward symptoms of disease, but not the emotional burden. Therefore, they neglect to notice (or simply cannot treat) the grinding, day-to-day weight of the disease itself. I don’t mean the physical symptoms, but the collateral damage: feeling too tired to go outside, being unable to enjoy holiday gatherings, missing your friends, hurting all the time, not getting enough sleep, and so on. These costs add up over time to create a significant loss to quality of life. That is the burden I mean.
This burden goes unaddressed, and thus deepens over time. The person with the chronic disease gradually comes to the realization (correct or not) that they will forever be saddled with this burden… and no one can help them. That is how it develops into trauma.
There is a second contributing factor to this trauma: the stigma baked into Western society. For centuries, we have all been conditioned not to discuss mental illness–or as I prefer to call it, mental wellness. For a very long time, the topic has been taboo. People with psychiatric or emotional imbalances have been viewed as a family shame, locked away, or even accused of demonic possession. That sort of social stigma is as ridiculous as it is outrageous.
Mental Illness is Real Illness.
Because remember, mental wellness depends on very real, physical conditions… just like any illness. It happens because brain structure begins to change and chemical levels shift, in response to environmental and internal factors. Dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and other neurotransmitters are affected, changing the way our brains respond to the world around us. I am oversimplifying it for the sake of brevity, but you can read more at the links behind this asterisk.*
As intelligent human beings, we absolutely must discuss this topic with empathy, rather than stigmatize or shame the patient. Would such a thing happen to someone suffering a fever, due to a flu? Of course not. So why does it happen often to someone suffering trauma or depression, due to a different illness? What nonsense. Our society needs to wake up and embrace a modern view of mental wellness.
Our Perspective
We who live with these chronic conditions carry not just the illness, but the additional burden of an unrelenting pressure: we are not well, and we do not feel well. We are always uncomfortable. Other people go about their daily lives with adequate energy, a positive mindset, and a body that feels okay. We have none of that. We are always exhausted. We are frequently scared, sad, frustrated, worried, or hopeless. And our bodies? Let’s not even go there.
Now, I say this not for pity, but for perspective. I wish to convey the situation so that others might understand. It’s important to perceive, and to acknowledge, the trauma of always being sick which weighs on top of the original illness.
You’re Not Alone!
So let us turn to brighter themes. If you have a chronic condition, please hang in there! You are not alone. Others are just like you, and they understand what you are going through. If you are in need, reach out and talk to someone. Try friends, family, support groups, therapists. You can also contact the (United States) nationwide 988 Crisis Line: call or text “988” with your phone, or visit the 988 website to chat for free support.
Also, if you know someone with a chronic condition, take a moment to go talk to them, or maybe even hug them. It is very important that they feel seen and heard. They might not even acknowledge the “invisible backpack” that they’re carrying… but it’s weighing them down, regardless.
Let’s share some compassion and love. We are all in this life together. <3
* – I typed the neurotransmitter info from my own knowledge, but here are some sources you can use for verification and more research:
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Mental health is of utmost importance in America right now, and AI art tools are an easy way to boost yours. Have you always wanted to draw or paint, but lack the skill? Has it been too long since art class? Don’t fret–a new wave of AI art generators has hit the field full steam, and it’s easy to climb on board.
We all live in a stressful world, but AI art can be a great way to relax. It’s easy to do, and it’s great for your mental health! By typing in a few words and clicking a button, you can get immediate stress relief, laughter from humorous results, and even art therapy. Making art has never been so easy, and many of the sites listed below are FREE!
This article is AI-free–it is 100% human-produced (except for the picture). Ironic, huh? 🙂
Creating art with an “AI art tool,” a.k.a. “AI art generator,” is ridiculously easy, and the better these tools get, the easier it will becomes. The process is just like interacting with a chatbot, except the bot answers with pictures instead of words. On the AI’s website, you type some words into a form to describe the picture you want to make. These words are called the “prompt.”
The prompt can be very simple, for example: “a brown dog.” Or you could make it more complex, like: “a furry dog sitting in a lawn chair in the sun.”
Advanced users can put in codes that only the AI tool can interpret, which will help it shape the image. For example, some AI art tools use specific prompts like “view from above,” so the picture would be looking down on the dog. These prompts can get complicated, but for beginners, that’s not necessary. Nearly all AI tools are perfectly happy if you type in simple prompts, and they will give you respectable pictures. 🙂
Mental Health and AI Art Tools
Creating any kind of art can improve your wellness, but I have discovered that AI art tools in particular offer unique opportunities to improve mental health. The reasons are stress relief, humor, and art therapy.
Stress Relief with AI Art
The act of creating art–any art, or even silly things you think might barely qualify–is an act of stress relief. I will not debate that concept here, nor give lengthy quotations from academic websites. If you don’t believe me, just take a moment to squish some mud or Play-Doh(R) into a ball, then play with it aimlessly for about five or ten minutes. I guarantee you will feel less stressed when you’re done. Why? In most human beings, a creative activity in a goal-free, logic-free manner will give natural release from tension. In other words, “playing with stuff creatively helps us de-stress.”
AI tools allow us to do this quickly, almost effortlessly. By typing a few words into a blank, then clicking a button, we can create any sort of picture we can imagine. It is an “immediate gratification” to match our fast-paced society. No oil or canvas needed! Poof–there’s art. 🙂
AI Art is Funny
Another benefit of AI-generated art is humor. From time to time, most AI art generators will produce something simply hilarious. This outcome happens more often with outdated models, or with ones hacked to death for purposes of censorship. You might get people with too many legs, or something completely opposite what you were expecting. Hopefully it will give you a good laugh. And laughter relieves stress!
For an example of humorous results, see my previous entry. Just to see what it would produce, I made a series using the traditional American “Yo Momma Too Fat” jokes. Yes, those old cliche one-liners! It was fascinating to see what the AI engine made. The results were extremely silly. I encourage everyone to type in jokes, cliches, sayings, slogans, etc., to see how the AI engines interpret them. The results can truly be hilarious!
Remember, AI tools have to interpret literally and exactly the words they receive. So if you type in, “a boy with ants in his pants,” they are literally going to attempt drawing a child with insects in his underwear. That’s what I mean by humorous results! Give yourself a good laugh, it’s good for your mental health. 🙂
Art Therapy using AI Art
There’s another way AI art tools can benefit your mental health: art therapy. Now, the benefit of art therapy on mental health is well-documented. Again, I will not bore you with long quotes and links; that’s not the purpose of this article. Suffice to say that many studies have shown how taking several minutes, even once a week, can help lift the spirits of many people suffering from mental health and mood disorders. That includes anxiety and depression . . . which covers about 20% of America right now!*
AI art generators make art therapy super-easy. You can use them for super-simple tasks, something as easy as typing in your current mood. For example, if you’re feeling down, you can just type in: “Depressing Darkness Full of Tears” and see what results. Maybe do it a few times. Stare at the results. What do they look like to you? Do they make you feel anything in particular? Do they help you feel any better? If not . . . maybe make a few more. 🙂 Or change the words and try again. The worst that can result is nothing. The best that can happen is that it relieves your pain. There are other ways to approach art therapy, but that is one way in which I used AI art, for myself.
So we can see that AI art gives us quick, almost effortless access to a creative outlet. That may in turn relieve our stress, help us laugh, and even perhaps provide a form of therapy. What a great concept! Free, accessible stress relief for everyone! Bring it on.
Professional Therapists Are Important!
At this point I do want say something important: if you are using any tools for therapy (including AI or art therapy), I strongly suggest you use them in conjunction with a professional therapist. While self-guided therapy can be helpful, a professional will understand how best to guide you down your path to healing. Okay? Also, I need to make Ye Olde Standard Disclaimer that I am not a licensed therapist, so therefore please do not make decisions assuming that I am one. No, I am a FloxMonster™, remember? Rawr.♥
As I always say, “please consult a professional in case of serious illness!”
Where to Go for AI Art!
So okay, we have established that AI art is great for mental health and mental wellness. Where can we go to make it? Well, there are now many websites providing good-quality AI art tools. Here are just a few which I have checked out personally. (The last update of this article is 17 May 2023, and these are in order of preference from great, to good, to don’t-go-there, to I literally take a whizz on one of them. So read on!)
Update 2025 – All of this section is outdated! Sorry. Except for N.C.; they’re still a bunch of asshats.
My recommendation in 2025 is, if you have over 12 gigs of VRAM in your computer:
Download ComfyUI (or Webui Forge if you’re Python-friendly).
Price Range: FREE. I can’t even find anywhere to buy the credits. Show up and get 10,000 free daily.
NSFW: Ohhhh yes.
This site seems to specialize in anime-style art, which is not especially my “thing,” however there is a “Pixai Real V.3.0” AI model you can select that gives fairly decent photorealism. The pictures are all very good quality: realistic shadows, no mutations or deformed limbs, beautiful skin, and pretty faces. This is a very well-trained ai model! However, there is one BIG caveat with this site: It is ssssssllllllooooooowwwwwwww. So set up your prompt, click the button, and go make a sandwich. No, really. It takes 10 minutes, give or take, to generate a picture. (I am a cheapskate, though, and I un-check the “High Priority” box because that way it costs fewer credits . . . so if that box were checked, the process might be a lot faster. I don’t know.) But anyway, what do you want, it’s free! And the pictures are very, very good quality. Note: if Firefox glitches, use a different browser; several times mine never loaded the final image, but Edge and Chrome gave good results.Also, I strongly suggest only grownups visit this site!
NSFW Allowed? Not right now! Not sure about the final version, was not able to locate that info.
Okay don’t get super-excited, because this one’s still in Beta, and knowing Adobe it’s going to be hellaspensive when they do release it. But I’ve been using it for a few weeks and I really, really like it. It’s clunky right now–the images need polish–but it responds beautifully to prompts. What I mean is, you can tell the AI is still being trained, but it has a great foundation. This one shows genuine promise. In a year, it’s going to be the front-runner, mark my words. But it won’t be free.
(click “Apply for Beta” on upper-right, fill out form to apply, you’ll hear back in a couple weeks if they approve you)
Mage.Space
Rating: 3 paws out of 4. <– AWARD: BEST ART QUALITY 🙂
Price Range: FREE or $ (No longer free!)
NSFW Allowed? Yes, with any paid plan.
I’ve been using this site for several days, and I really like it. This may soon be my primary tool. The images are about 250% better quality than the one on which I was previously wasting money, and I’m just using Mage’s free 512×512 resolution so far. Plus, the system responds beautifully to prompts. No floundering around with nonsense–I get images that actually resemble what I want, right away. Even better, the “FREE” plan allows for unlimited (!!) images at small size. Now, if you want larger (or NSFW) content, you need to upgrade ($4/mo), and if you want access to their specialized AI models that’s $15/mo. Those are really decent prices, by comparison.
Rating: 2 paws out of 4. <– AWARD: CHEAPEST (always free!)
Price Range: FREE (no longer free!)
NSFW Allowed? A big ol’ heck NO!
The best thing this has going for it is, it’s 100% free. It works off the Dall-E AI Model, which is not my favorite. The images don’t seem photorealistic (at present) although if you work at it, you can get some very good-quality ones. I personally was turned off by the high level of censorship. (It rejected the words “Trump” and “butt,” in separate prompts, during my test run. If you do a quick search, you can find dozens of posted complaints from people experiencing similar issues–one popular blogger called it a “hair-trigger censor,” lol.) So if you’re making nice-nice pictures for Granny, this is your site. Otherwise, find another place.
(link removed)
StableCog
Rating: 2 paws out 4.
Price Range: FREE or $$
NSFW Allowed? Can’t tell. It didn’t reject the word “nude” in the prompt, but didn’t produce nudity, either.
This site should have rated higher, because the art it generates is not bad. The AI model I used (Kandinsky) does show classic signs of deformation and mutation, meaning that it needs further training–but that’s not a dealbreaker, because nearly every does AI improve, the longer you use it. That’s exactly what they’re made to do. (Also, playing with negative prompts smoothed some of that out.) No, here is the dealbeaker: Part 1, The free plan gets 100 credits, and you can use those free images only for personal (not commercial) purposes; and Part 2, if you subscribe to their paid plans (which are expensive compared to their competition at $10, $25, and $50/mo) the credits those plans give do not roll over each month. It’s use ’em or lose ’em. Sorry, Stablecog, no sale! If they changed this policy, though, I would consider buying a plan here. I like the “smooth” and polished appearance produced by the Kandinsky model. It’s nice stuff, if you can overlook the other issues.
Price Range: Not really free, maybe 10 free credits total? or $$
NSFW: Yes, even with free.
I’ve been using this site for a few months. They have several features that work somewhat well, none of them amazingly-great. There’s your standard text-to-image (a.k.a. “prompts”), along with some photo enhancer tools and a background remover tool (which failed completely for me, the two times I tried it). The text-to-image tool really isn’t bad. The images are lifelike, and I appreciate very much that they allow NSFW / adult images. As for price, this is another place that makes you buy “credits” with which you purchase AI-generated images, and image enhancements, tweaks, up-sizes, etc. I really don’t like that system because it burns credits very fast. Their pricing starts at just $2.99/mo but that only gets you 200 credits. Trust me, if you experiment at all, you’re going to burn through that in week. 🙂 They see you coming! They will offer to sell you more credits. So I’m listing this as $$, semi-expensive, because I know it’s going to cost average people much more than $2.99/mo. (Important: as I finished typing this I noticed that the Fotor FAQ mentions credits have an “expiration date,” but does not specify how long they last. Beware! These credits do expire! I am now lowering its rating because of this. If you buy them, they should not expire.)
Rating: 2 paws out of 4. <- AWARD: EASIEST FOR NEWBIES 🙂
Price Range: very limited Free, or $
NSFW: No, I couldn’t find a generator to produce anything realistic.
The primary advantage of this tool is its sheer simplicity. If you’re just looking to start out, and want to play around with something super-simple, this is the place for you! You can type a few words into the blank, choose whatever style you wish, and click “Generate” to make instant art. It’s quite, well, simple. I honestly hate it, lol, it’s not my cup of tea . . . BUT I bet it would be great for someone just starting out! So if you get bored with Bing, or need something easier, try this one. 🙂
Price Range: Limited Free (about 100 images total) or $$
NSFW: NO!
This website intrigued me because it describes itself as a new approach to AI art, and offers your own trainable AI models as well as video enhancement. Naturally, there is also your standard text-to-image / prompt input. However, when I started playing with the text-to-image system, I was seriously disappointed. Even after selecting “Photograph” as the desired output, and putting “photorealistic” and “high resolution photograph” in the prompts, the output was still cartoony and not quite right. (Also, after I made the images, I could not find them–I mean anywhere.) As cool as it could be to train my own AI model, I think I’m going to pass on this site. The price wasn’t right either: $15/mo for 625 credits (or about 125 basic images, not counting enhancements). I’d burn that in a week. And again, the credits expire each month. Why is this even a thing? No sale!
I was unable to complete the test of this website, because they offer no free credits/images whatsoever. I did explore it, and examine the images on display. They appear to be very good quality. The shadows are well-placed and in proportion to the light in the room. Reflections are accurate. No sign of distortion or deformation on the human forms. These are all good signs. However, I have no way of knowing whether these display images are the “usual” output of the AI model, and also whether they are easy to make . . . or required hours of work to wrangle from the AI. This is regrettable–I wish I could test. The price seems high as well, starting at $9 for 60 images. Lastly, the site uses obscure terms like “energy pack” for credits along with a “dream” schedule for image quality. Oh, boy. This is another one I wish I could rate higher but . . . nope. I’m not going to spend $9 just to test it, and definitely not $9 for every 60 images I make. I’d go broke.
I was just about to give this site a solid 3, maybe even 3.5, until I glanced at the License and policies. On the one paw, they have solid-looking art, very good-looking AI models. However, on the other paw, there’s a lengthy Creative ML RAIL-M License attached telling you what you can and can’t do with your art . . . that starts out great, saying don’t break any laws, and halfway through gets mired down in what can be interpreted as basically “don’t offend anyone, anywhere, even by association or accident” more or less. Okay no thanks, you can eat that license. After looking at the price tag, I wouldn’t use the service anyway. It starts at $12/mo for 3,000 images, which is reasonable . . . but if you look at the fine print, this is another plan where the credits don’t roll over month-to-month. It’s “use ’em or lose ’em.” No thanks, that’s just not okay in my book. I don’t do business with companies who treat customers that way.
To be perfectly honest, I glanced briefly at this site and left very quickly. First of all, they do not give any free credits/images. Second, I cannot stand the cartoony quality of the Dall-E AI model. I realize some people love it, but I am really into photorealism, and Dall-E is the opposite of that. No apologies, I just seriously think it stinks. But here’s a link, in case that’s your thing. To each their own. They’ll sell you 115 credits for $15.
Rating: 1 paws out of 4. <– AWARD: MOST OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE! >:(
Price Range: $$$$$!
NSFW: Almost certainly not.
I was skeptical when I visited ShutterStock, but I entered a couple prompts . . . and the images weren’t horrendous! They weren’t great, but they actually had all the elements of the prompt in them, which surprised me. Serious issues, though, big distortion and proportion problems, color balance and contrast issues, stuff like that . . . this AI model has not been well-trained. Then I looked at the price–and my jaw dropped. ShutterStock’s minimum price is $49/mo to download any art. (Well to be fair, there is a special introductory price of $0.99 for one, individual piece. But that’s still highway robbery, especially considering the inferior quality of what you’re getting.) Absolutely unacceptable! 1 paw out of 4–one hind paw, raised high on this website.
(full name redacted because I will not advertise them)
Rating: 0 paws out of 4.
Price Range: $$$
This review has been removed because in my opinion the site has a) censorship way out of control, and b) an extremely expensive system which yields deeply inferior art. In addition, the owner deleted my paid account without prior warning, then literally sent me an email threatening me if I said anything bad about them. So if you know what “N.C.” stands for, or stumble across an AI art site with the initials N.C., consider this your heads up. Avoid that site and save yourself a huge headache! There are many better sites that won’t censor or threaten you. I’ve found several!
As you all know, I like to experiment with new technology. So when the AI art engines came out, I immediately pounced. I pushed them to their limit, played with them, made jokes with them. And laughed a LOT.
One game I enjoyed was putting in song lyrics to see what they would generate. Another game was to put in stupid jokes to see what images they’d make, to correspond with the words. This page is about the latter.
Yo Momma So Fat
There is a traditional American joke style called “Yo Momma So Fat.” It is meant to be humorous and mildly-offensive at the same time, while there is an understanding that of course . . . no one’s mother is actually being insulted. That’s part of the joke.
Being a round person myself, I was deeply amused by the way the AI interpreted these traditional jokes as images. It was a new take on an old theme. Therefore, I’ve decided to post some of the silliest ones, with their captions, so you can enjoy them too.
Politically-correct? Not especially. Silly? Yaaas.
Note: someone pointed out that several of these Mommas are dark-skinned, and I cannot explain why I did not tell the AI to make any particular skin-color; I literally typed the caption seen beneath each picture. So either it’s random, or has something to do with the pictures on which the AI was trained.
“Yo Momma So Fat, She Asks Apples for Weight Loss!”“Yo Momma So Fat, She Got the Whole Camel Foot In Her Pants!” (I had to struggle with this one a bit.)“Yo Momma So Fat, She Casts a Shadow on Next Week!”“Yo Momma So Fat, She Ate Elon Musk’s Ego!” (Oh SNAP! That’s big!) Also, WOW is Musk creepy in that pic.
So that’s it for the “Yo Momma” jokes. 😛
I had two more, one with a toilet, and one with Cthulhu, but I can’t find them. Ah, well.
I am off to make more silly chaos! Enjoy this until next time.
NightCafe is one of many AI art generators now available on the internet. The following is my personal experience with them, and my own, personal opinion. As with everything, your experience may vary.
Hello, here’s the FloxMonster™ again. Sometimes in this blog I write supportive articles, sometimes sales-based ones, and occasionally I do a “review and chew” one. This is one of those. Today I am reviewing NightCafe, based in Australia. Just so we know who we’re talking about… since I will not link to their website… they are a minor online company which makes AI art. Here’s their contact information, as listed on pitchbook.com and other public sources online:
Physical Address: 2E Trundle Terrace Whitfield Cairns, Queensland 4870 Australia
Full Disclosure
As always, I try to give an honest depiction of the situation. Therefore, today NightCafe banned me from their service, even though I am a paid “Pro” subscriber. As nearly as I can tell, this is the reason:
I created this picture using NightCafe’s service, to join their daily contest for which the theme was, “Generational Wisdom.” They wanted pictures of grandparents reading books to children, apparently. Well, this is a picture of a traditional Papua New Guinean funerary rite, by which they passed the souls and knowledge of loved ones to the next generation.
NightCafe didn’t like it.
This image’s backstory is a school paper I wrote when 11, about a former tradition of the “Fore” tribe in Papua New Guinea called Ritual Endocannibalism. In that now-abandoned practice, the families would consume portions of the deceased in order to literally, physically preserve them forever. This is what I described in the above picture’s caption. Now, to Western society, this is uncomfortable, but we must try to recognize that in this way, these families were protecting their loved ones’ memories. (By the way? I got an A on that paper.)
At any rate, apparently anthropology is a bannable offense at NightCafe . . . at least that’s my guess, because I never received a clear answer, and the site is such a morass of censorship and madness–in my opinion–that I will probably never know.
Threats and Bullying from NightCafe
ETA: NightCafe’s operators emailed me after I posted this, announcing that much of my content is offensive, and threatening me with the following, quote: “To any public lash out we will respond with the truth of the reason for your account’s suspension.” I find this baldfaced attempt at bullying to be rather amusing, for there is nothing illegal in my content, and certainly nothing by which I am either ashamed or offended. Furthermore, I have published the supposedly “offensive” content in multiple places–most of it months ago–for everyone to see. Promoting it would actually bring traffic to my website. No, I will continue to tell the truth about NightCafe, including their nonsensical censorship, despite their threats, thankyouverymuch.
Censorship
So let’s talk about that censorship! When I first joined NightCafe in November 2022, I didn’t notice much at first. It actually seemed like a normal (read: sane) website. Then gradually I began realizing I could not use certain words in the “prompts”–that is, the words you give the AI to make it draw pictures. Even stranger, the words were really random ones, like “ball” or “boy.” So I wrote to support, saying, “Hey, what’s going on?” They replied, “Oh that’s the censorship filter, don’t worry, we’re working on it.”
The Censorship Filter.
NightCafe’s Censorship Filter Costs You Money
Over the next several months, the “censorship filter” got more and more out of control. Remember, this was supposed to be a good thing–it should be a positive goal to filter out curse words, or adult body parts, or NSFW content. Sure, why not?
Why not? Because the “censorship filter” started negating legitimate pictures. For example, I would try to make a photo of the rounded Virginia mountains, and it would blank them out–I guess it thought they were women’s breasts? Or I would try to generate a picture of a beach ball next to the ocean, but I couldn’t use the word “ball” . . . and sometimes the people on the beach would be blanked out, because they were in bikinis. I cannot tell you how many credits I wasted because of that Censorship Filter.
And credits mean money, because NightCafe makes you buy them, once you use up the handful they give free. Credits are what you use, to pay for your art there. NightCafe says they refund you for the images that their system blanks out–but that doesn’t include the dozens of credits you waste trying to stumble around the words you cannot employ.
NightCafe Imposes Censorship On Your Profile and Descriptions
So I have shown how NightCafe imposes a strange sort of censorship when it comes to creating art on their website, first by limiting “prompts” (words) and second via the backend, when their system automatically blanks out images. There’s another way censorship creeps in.
When you make a picture at NightCafe, you can also make it visible to others. When you do so, however, you have to be very careful what you type in the caption. You cannot use certain words or the image gets “auto-moderated” (their word, not mine) meaning that others cannot easily see it until a human moderator approves it.
I stumbled across this “auto-moderation” system numerous times by accident. One example that sticks in my mind is my Meat Loaf piece. I often use lyrics from popular songs as prompts, to see what the AI generates from them. One day I used Meat Loaf’s seminal work: “Bat out of Hell.” However, when I made the results public, it got pushed to the auto-moderation queue. I was genuinely stunned. The word “hell,” buried in the lyrics, apparently triggered the Censorship Filter.
That song has been played on the public radio worldwide since 1977.
NightCafe Censors Your Private Chat
Censorship also applies to NightCafe’s lackluster “chat” feature (which appears to be in permanent Beta state). While talking to your friends, there is always an “auto-moderator” listening which blanks out any words with which it doesn’t agree. A couple friends and I had a private room, in which we chatted every night. The “auto-moderator” would interrupt us whenever we accidentally used a mild word like “crap” . . . and it did so, by hiding the entire paragraph. The three of us were all consenting adults, and no one else had access to the chat, so that rather quickly became annoying.
As the weeks passed, though, the auto-moderator became more intrusive. The list of blanked-out words became longer, and in some cases stranger. Two days ago, it blanked out an entire paragraph which contained the word “butt.” That’s right: BUTT. As in, “pork butt,” or “the rams butted heads.” Even in the context of, “sit on your butt,” this is a word which mothers and Kindergartners use openly.
At this point, you may be thinking I am being overly picky. I can see your point of view. However, I have given these examples as single points of a much larger picture. It is the sheer mass which you must experience, to understand. After you publish a dozen pictures, and they get auto-moderated or removed for reasons that a grade school teacher would not even smirk about, you begin to wonder what’s going on.
NightCafe does as NightCafe Wishes. Will You Risk It?
To conclude with the censorship section: I am reasonable, and I can grasp NightCafe’s view. They are in business, and it is their website after all. They simply don’t want porn or bad words there. That’s absolutely fine. I take no issue with that.
What I take issue with is when someone opens a huge umbrella labeled, “No Offensive Material,” then decides on a whim what “offensive” means. Or when someone decides to ban a paying customer without explaining the offense, and without giving any kind of prior, written warning. That’s standard procedure with any business, and failure to do so is simply not acceptable. (In my case, for example, they sent an email the day after they banned me, then claimed it was “prior written warning.” No dice, guys, it’s timestamped!) If a government tried to do that, everyone with a suit would sue.
So I lost my money, my account, and all the art in it, directly due to their whims of censorship. What do you think about that? Are you willing to take the risk with NightCafe?
NightCafe is -really- Expensive
Yes, I did mention money a few times above. Let’s chat about that. On top of all that censorship, NightCafe is really expensive! They advertise that they offer free art, but to my perception this is what law enforcement fondly refers to as a “bait and switch.”
Again, I would remind you that these are my personal experiences and opinions. Your own may vary.
Here’s how it works: NightCafe offers you five (5) credits for logging in each day. You also get a couple if you vote in the contest, and jump through other hoops . . . however, on closer inspection you will see that there is fine print attached to all of those. For example, one way to earn points is to “Post an Image to Twitter!” What they don’t tell you is that you need a minimum number of followers in order to get those points. (I know this by direct experience; I posted on Twitter, did not receive the posts, and asked why. Then found out the fine print.)
So you get 5 to 7 credits daily if you jump in the basic hoops. Okay, great! So let’s make some art.
Guess what? It costs 1 credit to make a single picture . . . and that’s a very low-quality, basic one. If you want to make a better-quality one, that costs you another credit. If you want to make it bigger? Another credit. If you want to make 4 pictures together? Oh, that costs more than 1 credit!
Do you see where I’m going with this?
In addition, because their system is poorly designed (in my opinion) it also takes many attempts to create a decent image. You will spend your basic 5-7 free credits just trying to make one basic image that doesn’t look like Rorschach’s nightmare.
Furthermore, if you’re making pictures too quickly, the system will give you a timeout of several minutes, during which it tells you to use credits in order to proceed. Sorry, buddy, buy credits. More credits. More credits. During my research for this article, I encountered one (also-banned-without-warning) reviewer who described NightCafe’s moneymaking techniques as “a gamification system.” On reflection, he is absolutely right. It is gamification in the same way that a slot machine lures you into feeding it money while keeping you distracted, so you do not notice how much you’re putting in.
On the surface, credits look inexpensive. They average three cents each. However, what that does not convey is the vast number of credits you need to make any decent-quality art using their system. On a typical piece, I would spend between 25 to 100 credits, easily. So that’s $0.75-$3 per art piece. And you’re paying that higher price for slower performance and far lower quality than what is available on competing systems like Bing, Mage.Space, Adobe Firefly, etc (see below).
My conclusion is this: NightCafe is set up as a monetary “gotcha!” system which lures you in with an offer of “free credits,” then nickel-and-dimes you down until you’re forced to buy more credits just to make a few half-decent pictures. Just like that slot machine into which you keep feeding quarters, until you realize your checking account is empty.
Conclusion
If a friend asked me whether they should use NightCafe, I would advise that friend:
Avoid NightCafe like Covid and green Jello combined.
I consider NightCafe to be a den of shocking censorship, as well as a very poor investment in a badly-run company using slow servers with grossly-outdated AI models.
But that’s just my personal opinion. Since I have a degree in Art, and have been doing this since the 1990s. You know. That kinda thing.
Aetherpunk Foxes have invaded the site–oh noes! These lively fellows sport Steampunk-esque clothing, plus the vivid, illuminated-energy gadgets which mark the “Aetherpunk” genre. Three foxes have joined the family: Bluezy, Lady Ginger Gears, and Copper Cogchewz.
Kick-Ass Angels, you heard me. None of these flappy-wing little Valentine cherubs! What can they do? (By the way, did you know the original kerubim were gigantic temple guardians in Ancient Akkadia? They’d crush those ridiculous babies! Which are from the Renaissance Era. But I digress.)
We Need Heavy-Duty Help
Back to the topic at hand. Our society is falling to bits. We’re at the edge of war, the environment’s melting, prices are nuts, and everyone’s going berserk. Enough of these gauzy happy guardian-floozies and bringers-of-good-dreams. We need some heavy-duty help, here!
Michael and Gabriel
Bring on the Archangel Michael, and his brother Archangel Gabriel. These two would drop-kick troublemakers into the next century. They are tough. They take no nonsense! And, incidentally, they are the only two angels mentioned by name in the Judeo-Christian Bible. (Unless you include a rather obscure Catholic version which includes a tale about some kid named Tobit flouncing around the countryside with Raphael. Long story. Anyway.)
Even the Islamic faith mentions Michael and Gabriel, especially Gabriel! He is their rockstar, in fact. They dress him up in green robes and flames, all fancy and super-powerful. Islamic Jibril, as he’s called, don’t take no shit.
(No I’m not researching this, I’m writing this down from memory. He might not have flames, I might have made that up. It’s 4 a.m. and I’m out of coffee.)
We Need More Kick-Ass Angels!
It may come as a surprise to some of you, but I like angels. I like the big ones, with the weapons.
Every so often, our popular culture depicts angels in this fashion. It makes me happy when this occurs. You can find it in movies like “Legion” (2010) and in television programs like “Dominion” (2014-2015). There are many other examples, but those are my two favorite.
Dominion Tribute
Yes, I have been known to make tributes a.k.a. “Fan Art” for Dominion. I have not done so in a very long time, but with the advent of AI art tools, I decided to see what I could cook up.
I proposed the question to myself: what would the Archangels Michael and Gabriel of Dominion look like, several years after the show ended? Hypothetically they would look different . . . possibly a bit scruffier . . . but still decidedly kick-ass angels. Therefore, I let the technology do its work, pulled the images out, and gently did my own work upon them. Below are the results!
I present these images in great fondness and respect for both the show’s creator (Vaun Wilmott) and for the actors depicted herein (Tom Wisdom and Carl Beukes).
Much Love to them, and to the Dominion Fandom as a whole. ♥
Tom Wisdom as Archangel Michael from Dominion – Redone for 2023! (Tribute by Wyvern Dryke 2023. If you use this pic please link here.)Carl Beukes as Archangel Gabriel from Dominion – Redone for 2023! (Tribute by Wyvern Dryke 2023. If you use this pic please link here.)
(No, I promise I did not tell the AI tool to make him shirtless. That just happened! The beauty of random algorithms. And maybe just a little FloxMonster™ magick.)
They are both so handsome and beautiful with long hair.
“Kick-Ass Angel” (c)2023 A.M. Coy – All Rights Reserved (This guy isn’t from Dominion… he’s mine.) 🙂
Conclusion: Kick-Ass Angels Are the Answer.
Even the staunchest Bible-Thumper must agree, if we had angels running around looking like the two above, our world-problems would get quickly solved. They would just go around smiting folks until everyone stopped disagreeing. LOL.
You may notice, if you visit my site right now (Feb 2023), there’s a security check when you first hit. There’s a reason for that. Over the past week a group of punks has been hitting me with a steady DDOS, or Denial of Service attack.
It started several days ago, out of Russia and China, plus a few servers in Turkey. After I blocked those IPs, they switched to servers based in Dulles, Virginia. After I blocked those, they moved to a few different IPs based in Finland, Germany, France, and UK. Oh, yes. I’ve been watching . . . and blocking their stupid asses. I’ve been making websites since 1994, folks, I know how to play.
Is Pro-Ukraine Tea the Cause?
I suspect the reason for the temper-tantrum might be the brand new name I’ve given to my Russian Caravan tea, over on Coyoteas.com. It’s named “Putin is an Asshole tea.” Because it’s RUSSIAN Caravan tea. And I support Ukraine.
As the page there states, I was going to keep the name until Putin gets the hell out of Ukraine. It was meant to be a sort of darkly humorous protest, the way I do. However, now that the punks have attacked my websites . . . I’m a little ticked off. Not only am I going to keep the name, I will improve it. The name will now be “Putin Putain the Asshole” tea.
Putain is French for whore.
Vladmir Putain Rules the Whores
Yep, Vladimir Putain. Vladimir supposedly means, “he who rules the world” so now his name means, “he who rules the whores!” HA!
Yup, that’s what a degree in art and Freedom of Speech will get ya. I love America, baby! ♥
Putin Is, in Fact, an Asshole.
In conclusion, I will not allow anyone to BULLY me into taking down content from my site. That is not how the FloxMonster™ works. First, I am fortunate to live in a country where we have the freedom to speak our minds and to parody public figures if it serves a greater purpose. *Points to picture above.* Second, even if I didn’t, I damnsure wouldn’t let a bunch of punks cow me into submission through these pitiful, schoolyard bully techniques. That kind of crap will make me post more.
Finally–and most importantly–Putin is a DEMON who has perpetuated war crimes and human rights violations for decades. That’s not my opinion, that’s verified fact.
So that’s what I have to say. You will not bully me, little DDOS’ing punks. You have no idea what kind of beast a FloxMonster™ truly is. But if you keep this crap up, you just might find out. And I promise, you won’t like it.
K-Cups are bad for the environment. They’re plastic, it’s hard to recycle them, plastic is EBIL, okay, okay, alright.
But I love the damn things. Alright? I said it. When it’s 3 in the morning, I just can’t be arsed to make a whole pot of coffee. I grab a K-cup and make a single cup and Ahhhhh, it’s so good!
So, maybe I’m going to hell. But here’s how I reduce the environmental impact of those nasty, awful K-cups. Want to hear?
Reduce, Re-use, Recycle the K-Cups
Back in the early 90s, us Earth-Lovin’, Tree-Huggin’ types had a saying: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Well, it isn’t super-easy to reduce using K-Cups, when you’re as addicted to coffee as I am . . . and not all places will recycle the little brats. BUT! You can reuse K-Cups, and I’ll show you how.
K-Cups Make LOTS of Coffee! 😀
Some coffee perfectionistas may scream at this, but your typical K-Cups actually make a lot more coffee than just one cup. I’ll slap one in my Keurig machine and run the cycle twice, to make a super-big mug of coffee. LOL! Extra caffeine for me . . . and extra love for the environment.
In doing this, I help two things at once: my wallet and the ecology. I am using the same K-cup twice, so that’s one I did not have to purchase, and also by extension, one plastic cup that didn’t end up in a landfill. Two for one!
Make Hot CoaFfee.
Another idea is even more fun. I am nuts about hot chocolate. I’m crazy about it! And I love adding things to my hot cocoa, like flavors and spices and–lots of the time–coffee. So what I do is add my hot cocoa mix to the mug, then slap that mug into the Keurig machine with a used K-cup still in there. The result is that I get some coffee flavor in my hot cocoa, and re-use the K-cup. Double bonus!
Hot Cocoa + Coffee = Hot Coaffee. :3
K-Cup Seedling Pots?
My last idea is to re-use those empty K-cups for seedlings. Once you have used the cups, rip off the top and dump the coffee into a composting bin. (It’s too acidic for what you’re about to do.) Now you have a tiny little pot with a drainage hole pre-poked in the bottom! Fill it with soil, poke 2-3 seeds in it, add water, and put it in a warm place. Plants will germinate in there. Ta-da!
Conclusion
Yes, I acknowledge, the best way to help the environment in regard to K-cups is not to use them at all. Plastic is ebil and we need to reduce our use of it as much as possible. In addition, companies do make nifty, reusable cups for Keurig machines that you can fill over and over again with coffee.
That said, if your life is hectic like mine, and those refillable ones seriously piss you off (sorry, but they do, I get the coffee everywhere, I can’t hold them well, and I burn myself trying to empty them, lol), then hopefully this essay will give you food for thought.
Great news! This week only, you can get 15% OFF magnets depicting our beautiful “Archangel with Fox” art, which was just released yesterday. That’s right, all our awesome, die-cut magnets are ON SALE for the next seven days! See our Super Sale Items from FloxMonster™ page for details.
Fox and Angel Magnet
Our original “Archange with Fox” fox by A.M. Coy depicts a handsome male angel hugging a snow-white fox in front of a beautiful sunset and sea. The artist created it over a period of days using a number of digital tools. It is now available on a number of items, including cups, blankets, posters, canvas art, shirts, and more. See all items in the Heavenly Hunks theme.
So please take advantage of this weeks’ promotion–enjoy our magnets on sale! Next week… there might be something new 🙂
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