My gut tells me lying for clicks “isn’t cool” because I might feel bad if I was one of the clickers. But is it formally unethical?
Lying for profit seems obviously unethical because there’s an exchange of currency for a service. So if I contracted you to make a stop motion thing and you faked it with animation I’d be rightfully pissed.
But lying for entertainment? Haven’t we been doing that for millennia? Pro Wrestling, Hollywood, History, Makeup, Mythology, etc…
If you have given me nothing and I give you a lie, who is harmed? I may have broken your trust, and you may not like it, but that’s just that. Or is attention the new currency?
It’s harmful as it sets up the audience to end up either disbelieving everything they see or to think that their own abilities/failures aren’t normal. Especially given the blatant lies, “it took three days and I’m really happy with the result, you can barely tell the difference”.
Narrative wise a compelling video could still have been made showing which parts are real and how CGI can have benefits, especially if the final result was a hybrid of stop motion and CGI. Go what this longer video to see the details.
I must be jaded to assume everyone posting videos on youtube is doing so for profit, but... judging by the amount of expensive professional equipment he has, I suspect he is doing this for profit, and not just "entertainment"
In the first case I’m not getting what I purchased.
In the 2nd case I was scrolling videos looking to be entertained. The video entertained me; therefore, I got what I came for.
I am no less disillusioned in either case when learning the truth. But in one case I was cheated out of something of value while in the other I was no less entertained in the moment (even if I paid for the entertainment, I got what I paid for). Maybe I don’t want to see your videos anymore because you made me feel bad later, but you still entertained me in the moment I was looking for it.
IDK now I’m honestly kinda curious. I read the apology piece thinking this guy is a dishonest jerk but now I’m really wondering if he needed to apologize at all. Though, I imagine this was eating at him and it is refreshing to clear his guilty conscience. So the advice to probably don’t do this likely holds for people with similar dispositions.
OK, I see where you're coming from, you didn't personally lose money. I'll even concede that the first one is worse.
I still think both are wrong - the second one steals from the public's ability to trust things, and is unfair to creators who don't lie. Same with how cheating on school assignments is wrong, even if you can't point very directly at who was hurt. Its bad for society and almost all codes of ethics agree
I agree cheating is wrong. But it’s wrong because it’s fraud. You’ve falsified data and materially misrepresented yourself in a situation where there’s an expectation of honestly measuring your aptitude. Whoever relies on that truthful representation (such as a college offering you a scholarship) is being cheated out of something of value (a student with commendable aptitude that will one day give back generously to the endowment, che<tongue>ek). We tend not to worry too much about cheating because usually it doesn't work out for the cheater in the end, but it’s clearly unethical.
“Stealing from the public’s ability to trust things.” Well… I tend to believe in people to an extent that would make Jonathan Kent proud, and even I don’t think entertainment that takes liberties is bad for society or erodes trust. If almost all codes of ethics agreed that entertainment had to be real, Hollywood and the internet wouldn’t exist.
I can see it being unfair to other content creators who believe that real content is one of the rules of the game. But since I’m not in the content creation industry I don’t know if that’s the expectation.
I guess the question is: is this entertainment (like hollywood) or journalism. I read the news not because it really materially affects my life but just because its cool to know things that are true.
Fake news in an article about some cool thing someone did would still be sad to me, even if it doesn't really change anything
If what you hoped to get from the video was an entertaining few minutes I guess you're right to feel fine
But i hoped for an interesting look into the creative process and inspiration that fun things are possible, and I feel cheated
IMO if the lie is “inside the work”, then it’s fair.
Another example in the comment thread is Fargo. The lie about the true story happens inside of the film itself.
But if you lie in the meta data, then it’s unethical. In this case if Fargo was categorized as Documentary or non fiction.
This was a big deal when the book A Million Little Pieces has to be recategorized as fiction and a lot of ppl were deceived.
Another thing you really shouldn’t do is say “I don’t use steroids or makeup or surgery - I achieved this body through hard work alone” which makes ppl have unrealistic expectations. Super unethical
Spinal Tap is a parody. Parody and satire are such that the audience is not initially told the performance is a lie, but the work itself gives more and more clues that it is not real. It gets more and more ridiculous. The point of a parody is to comment on the thing parodied.
He actively worked hard to hide that it is not real. He gave no subtle clues. The work's lie does not make a commentary on Netflix, craft art, or anything. The only thing the lie does is make you think he is a really skilled craft worker. That's why the video spread, and so that's why there is such outrage at the lie. It wouldn't have gone viral if he admitted it was CGI.
The Spinal Tap version of this would be like the same TikTok style DIY videos, where it is common to show some steps and the jump to the finished product, but where it would be obvious that he had not DIYed it. Like if he took $30 of yarn and used camera tricks to "build" a fully working computer to watch Netflix. That would be a parody commenting on the same thing as the "draw the rest of the fucking owl" meme [1]
Fargo opens with "This is a true story. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred."
The disclaimer that this is not, in fact, the case, is in small print in the closing credits.
What you're describing is a cultural thing specific to the horror/thriller genre -- the audience is in on it. Even when you know it's not real acting like it's real helps people get into the right headspace to feel the fear.
Fargo is a fictional "movie adaptation of a real events."
On the other extreme, do you care if a video presenting itself as authentic is fully staged or not? Does it matter if a video you watched was fully AI generated but is claiming not to be?
Lying for profit seems obviously unethical because there’s an exchange of currency for a service. So if I contracted you to make a stop motion thing and you faked it with animation I’d be rightfully pissed.
But lying for entertainment? Haven’t we been doing that for millennia? Pro Wrestling, Hollywood, History, Makeup, Mythology, etc…
If you have given me nothing and I give you a lie, who is harmed? I may have broken your trust, and you may not like it, but that’s just that. Or is attention the new currency?