Some minor drama happened with Mio over the past week due to her accidentally using AI art for a thumbnail. Honestly I thought it was so small that it wasn't worth mentioning, but it escalated quite a bit and affected her more than I thought. She had to do a quick members' stream to vent her feelings out yesterday, even ended up crying a bit. Big post ahead but I figured it was worth noting down.
Mio had a Minecraft stream scheduled on the 16th. The current thumbnail is a regular png of her:
But this was the original:
The art was by this person named Kurenai. He deleted his Twitter but his
Pixiv account is still available:
That art of Mio was posted on Twitter using Mio's art hashtag,
#みおーん絵, which is why she used it at a thumbnail. It was quickly pointed out to her by fans that the art is AI, mainly cause on Pixiv, the art was tagged as such. People also noted
inaccuracies with Mio's accessories, the usual AI art mistakes as well as the fact that he was uploading art basically every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Mio's own artist, Izumi, also posted about it:
Archive
After that, the fans went on Kurenai's page and told him to stop posting AI on Mio's art tag. Some got heated as autistic fans tend to do. Mio herself made a statement after:
Archive 1
Archive 2
I thought that would be it but Kurenai double-downed and said that his art wasn't AI. I could only get discord screenshots since his Twitter was deleted before I could archive:
Basically, he claimed that the AI tag on Pixiv was added by somebody else, then did a Twitch stream on the 17th where he defended himself.
(I can confirm, Pixiv lets anyone
add tags to someone else's art if that setting isn't changed.)
Here's his
Twitch account and the
VOD where he defended himself. I skimmed through it and it was basically just a few hours of drawing while sometimes responding to chat. He quickly showed the layers of the Mio art for like 30 seconds. He didn't really prove much though cause apparently, it'd be easy to trace something with AI and then create layers from there. The chat wanted to see the original rough drawing, but he claimed he deleted it and just kept streaming from there. He also
claimed he's a minor.
That was enough for some people though. After that, Mio, her fans and Izumi got a ton of hate comments and stuff from antis/pro-AI people, claiming they unfairly attacked the artist, started a witch-hunt, were rude to AI artists and should apologize. Mio's art tag was apparently flooded with complaints and AI art for a bit. Her fans were fighting with the antis, drama articles/posts/videos went around etc. This basically went on for 2 days or so. On the 19th, Mio made a second statement and apologized:
Archive
But a few hours after, some autists dug through Kurenai's history and confirmed he sold AI art under a different name. After this got found out, he completely deleted his Twitter account:
Archive (archive.ph for this one since Ghostarchive has been annoying.)
That brought us to yesterday, where Mio wanted to have a quick, 30-minute
members-only chat:
- Wanted to say she's grateful for all the support, whether it's comments, fan art, AsaMio submissions, etc. All of it helps keep her motivated and she appreciates that.
- Didn't want to explain the matter directly as it's gotten pretty complicated. She also knows that only giving her perspective on things could lead to even more problems, but she wanted to apologize for potentially making people feel bad due to how everything happened and how heated it's gotten.
- Even though it started on Twitter, she knows how much it's been discussed on other places. She only asks that her fans don't engage with the antis on her behalf. She knows there's been a lot of posts that go way too far (death threats etc), but if there's anything like that, there's no need to respond to it. Just send it to Cover's inquiry form and mute/block.
- Mio herself has been muting any of those extreme replies to her tweets and has avoided looking herself up on Twitter/SNS, so she hasn't really seen as much slander/hate as you would think. Even before all of this started, she's always been the type to mute antis as she wants to keep her motivation up.
- Management is fully on her side and has also been checking for any extreme comments.
- Very obvious but she has no intention of graduating or taking a break for something like this.
- She talked about how she's been feeling and admitted it's been tough for her. People getting angry at her and saying all this messed-up stuff to her for no reason. She may be strong but she doesn't have a heart of steel.
- She didn't want to take a break so she's been following her schedule as normal, but also didn't want to stream while feeling down so it's been tough.
- The main thing for her is that she hasn't been sleeping enough lately. When that happens, her mind and mood feel off and she starts doubting if she can be funny or interesting on stream. Her throat has also been feeling bad so she's been drinking olive oil before every stream. So she's doing her best to focus on that.
- She was also worried about collabing with the other Holos when she's like this, but they told her it's fine and they'll be happy to collab. She was grateful for how kind they were along with everyone who's been supporting her through this stuff. Being in such a warm environment is why she's been able to keep going with her activities.
- Perhaps some fans have left her due to all of this, but she hopes they'll come back when they're ready. And even if they don't, she wants to keep going cause of new fans that could find her. Even if it's just one person.
- She's fine if people attack her cause she can just mute them, but she couldn't stand the thought of her fans getting hurt due to her. She started crying here.
- She felt guilty and apologized about crying on stream because she knows people would get even more mad on her behalf. She doesn't want anyone to raise their fist at anyone else over this. Instead of raising our fist angrily, she wants us to raise our fist while cheering hard for her during her eventual solo live.
- She apologized again about crying and said that would be it for this topic. She would only move forward from here and do her best with streaming. But she's glad she got to talk about it here as she couldn't really do so in a regular stream.
- She feels more comfortable talking about her emotions like this with members. It was good for her to properly express how she's feeling with everyone and she felt much better afterwards.
- She's glad that she's bad at multi-tasking as it's easier to focus on whatever game she's playing, so her emotions won't rile up mid-stream.
- She calmed down after this and the rest of the stream was chill.
- She confirmed she'd still be doing her Farming Simulator collab with Fubuki and Aki.
- Talked about how she's basically been meeting with Fubuki every day during recordings and hanging out. She's also been meeting with Laplus.
- Mio, Fubu and Lui saw the new Captain America together with Lui and she really liked it She hasn't seen much Marvel movies but she "thought the black guy was cool and the action scenes were really different from usual."
TLDR of Everything:
- February 16th: Mio accidentally uses an AI art for her thumbnail cause the artist used her art hashtag when he posted it, even though all Holos have a rule against posting AI on official hashtags.
- After fans point it out, she changes the thumbnail, makes a statement and apologizes for using AI art.
- February 17th: The artist defends himself and claims that he doesn't do AI art. He also claims someone put the AI tag on his Pixiv post and streams on Twitch to defend himself.
- Antis and pro-AI people use this to send hate comments to Mio and her fans. Her fans defend her of course and it turns into a giant JP autism war for about 2 days.
- February 19th: Mio makes a second statement, apologizing for claiming the art was AI without 100% proof. Antis continue to attack her and her fans.
- A few hours later, it gets confirmed that the artist was in fact using AI, as he sold AI art under a different name. He deletes his Twitter account afterwards, though his Pixiv and Twitch are still open as of this post.
- February 21st: Mio does a members-only stream and talks about her feelings. While it's been tough, she can handle being flamed and getting sent hate comments. Seeing her fans get the same treatment though made her feel terribly guilty. She also hasn't been sleeping, her mental's been feeling low and her throat's been a little rough. It's been a difficult few days for her but she wants to move past this and keep doing her best with streaming. She felt much better after getting her feelings out.
I can't say I'm pro or anti-AI cause I don't care enough either way. But I do hate fags who lie for attention and end up causing this much stress. Mio's doing better, even had a great karaoke stream earlier today, but she should have never had to deal with it in the first place. If he really is a minor, then this further confirms my belief that people shouldn't have internet access until they're 21.