For the last couple of decades, we’ve been wandering around the Internet wearing a comfortable cloak of digital anonymity. It wasn’t perfect, but it was easy: pick a username like ‘Reprage’, hit submit, and boom—the birth of another online mask.
Then the bots moved in. At first, you could spot them a mile off. But lately, the synthetic content has gotten convincing. Too convincing. You scroll past a post and think. Wait, is that even a person? You’ve read the headlines. Industrial-scale trolling. Election interference. It’s not just noise—it’s corrosive.
I know this comes left of field, and I’m not sure Nike or the studio intended it, but the structure—the making and uploading—works like a proof-of-humanity. A digital fingerprint that reflects the person behind the handle. It is what makes the ISRU summer camp so unexpectedly valuable.
Each drawing, each clumsy proof-of-challenge, leaves a trace. Together, the submissions form a portrait. And for me, that portrait says: “Yeah, Reprage is me. I’m a real person. I was here.”
Previously: TGIM 55 - Making Art Inside the Marketing Machine
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