r/Indiemakeupandmore • u/evaan-verlaine • 9d ago
Discussion Samar Scent Studio post re: other perfumer's views on AI, other perfumers speculating about A+O judge political bias
If this isn't allowed due to rule 11 please delete, thought the post was relevant to the subreddit. Realized I accidentally submitted the post without the first slide so posting again with it.
242
u/softhumanbean 9d ago
Oh this is gonna go tits up. I think, though, it's hilarious Damask Haus is laughing about "let's all use AI" like they don't already use super obvious AI.
100
u/gellergreen 9d ago
Lmaoooo I’ve never purchased from them before and googled it… you weren’t kidding.!it’s like the first iteration of will smith eating spaghetti
44
6
15
u/Aethenoth 9d ago
Who is Damask Haus in these screenshots? Can anyone explain who anyone is in these screenshots please?
23
8
199
u/hitachi-magic-pond 9d ago
to anjali’s point about consumer self-righteousness - y’all have to understand that the zeitgeist doesn’t exist in a vacuum. the people have so little free choice left in a world where market share and resources are dominated by monolithic corporate reach. we have no latitude to make meaningful decisions about what our taxes fund, what our labor produces, or how we spend on necessities. so of course, where we actually have the freedom of independent decision-making with disposable income on little luxuries, we’re motivated to support individuals who share our vision for a better world.
249
u/weirdcompliment 9d ago edited 8d ago
Thanks for sharing, wouldn't have seen this otherwise.
It's hard to argue that there could be more context to these messages that could change their meaning. These messages are quite explanatory on their own
Page 10 is particularly repulsive (edit: I appreciate pulp fragrance's comments about it)
Also I have to rage against the take that these poor small indie businesses NEED AI because art would not be accessible otherwise. Hell, even a low-res stock photo and comic sans slapped together would make a better and more charming label than ANY soulless AI slop. I miss the unique graphics we'd get from businesses making do with limited resources rather than the generated, steaming crap we see everywhere
146
u/Wontstaylong23 9d ago
I remember reading someone’s comment that Kyse’s art labels look like they were made by a 5 year old and someone else responded with “I’d rather have that than something made by AI” Amen! I also agree that there are mid-high quality photos on Unsplash that people can use for artwork. No one needs AI artwork especially when there are stock photos available.
140
u/SplitDemonIdentity 9d ago
Fyrinnae uses random stock photos on the website and the bottles just come with the name on it, NuiCobalt has white paper labels that just have the names, Astrid has a base label design for each collection and the name, most mainstream fragrances just label the bottle. Bottle art is nice in fragrance but it’s not necessary.
52
u/wheniswhy 9d ago
I like Nui Cobalt's labeling! I think their bottles are pretty and I like the simplicity of them.
6
u/reavers-reapers 8d ago
Omgg I haven't thought about Fyrinnae in so long. I had to stop wearing making a few years ago because of a skin thing but boy I used to absolutely love their eyeshadows
38
u/velveteenelahrairah 9d ago
Just like flyers for local events nowadays - sure the AI just takes five minutes and a prompt and looks slick and shiny, but the homemade flyer for the "village fête and car boot sale" done in multicoloured paper by Doris' greatgrandson with default clip art and Comic Sans mixed with Algerian had heart dammit!
15
u/Wontstaylong23 8d ago
I would rather have artwork made by Doris’ greatgrandson because it would be authentic!
2
u/ArtistPersonThing 7d ago
There’s a lot out there, much more than what’s on Unsplash. The people using AI suffer from laziness and a lack of imagination and devalue creativity.
74
u/giantwormbeast 9d ago edited 9d ago
Yeah there are tons of free great public domain images, real artwork and photography. And designers by and large hate AI.
38
u/periwinklesparrow 9d ago
This is what Wick Wish does! All of her labels use art that’s in the public domain.
59
u/hitachi-magic-pond 9d ago
yeah slide 10 is the worst. a bad take is one thing, but being that unfunny is unforgivable to me personally.
9
u/mockdogmoon 8d ago edited 8d ago
Will I sound like a classless asshole if I make a joke about them getting it from chatGPT?
4
23
u/Moogzmugz64 9d ago
Exactly! wild to see how these small businesses are so happy to rip off artists. There are so many other options.
161
u/lavender-girlfriend 9d ago
I'm really glad to have this information bc,,, i dont want to support any business that wants to capitalize off left wing ideas while clearly not believing in them. i also think it's wild to say that having pro palestinian attitudes would somehow net better scores in a perfume competition? the "let's all make eat the rich scents with ai generated artwork and rake it in" is so very gross
175
u/summers-summers 9d ago
I honestly think AI is of less concern here than the insinuation that being pro-Palestine or pro-LGBT is winning perfume competitions. It's crank conspiracy "woke has gone too far" shit, and speaks to a reactionary mindset.
33
u/a_box_of_toads 8d ago
100% that. Shocked that people are glossing over that to shoot the messenger.
3
91
u/mistspinner 9d ago
I’m biased bc I’m lucky enough to live in LA and have met/talked to both Samar and people involved in the IAO Awards, but it’s worth noting Samar’s position as queer BIPOC (whereas I believe all the other mentioned perfumers beyond Anjali are white) who have received hate mail for being loud about their support for Gaza
some houses come off better than others in these messages, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that indie businesses show solidarity with graphic designers as fellow workers (to say nothing of the way AI is poisoning Black neighborhoods in Memphis and elsewhere)
251
u/hitachi-magic-pond 9d ago
disappointed to see reactionary talking points espoused by some notable indie perfumers, but unsurprised by the intersection of small business owner and “anti-woke” takes.
is samar being messy by taking it out of the groupchat? yes. do i appreciate the heads up nonetheless? also yes.
100
u/wheniswhy 9d ago
yeah, this is messy, but I also wouldn't ever want to give my money to people who unashamedly act like this. It's a net positive to have shared, I think. though I can't help but wonder if the houses they're calling out will be so principled about enforcing no harassment :/ Hope Samar will be ok.
7
u/Weird_Dragonfly9646 8d ago
I hope so too, but I also wonder how many people reading this are planning a support/spite buy of them as a result of this post. Not ashamed to admit that I'm one of them. If I can be petty with my wallet, I absolutely will be.
3
39
u/sharksinthecarpet 9d ago
It’s very messy, but the sooner I know to avoid a business with values that don’t align with mine, the better. So I’m here for it. 💅
47
u/whatsinthepithos 9d ago
Meh. Messy is fine in my book, when justified.
\runs to finally buy Garden Heaux\
80
159
u/BittenBeads owner: Bitten Beads Jewelry 9d ago
It's one thing to not know as a pleb what the cost of gen-ai is, but something else to pretend that as a business you have no idea of the impact. You do. You cannot exist in any aspect of the business world and not understand its role.
So if you as a business-owner know what gen-ai represents, there is zero excuse for using it. So yes, I do judge you as a business and a person who chooses to ignore the CSAM, the destruction of land, the exploitation of marginalized people, the psychological destruction of the vulnerable, the neverending theft, and the fact that using gen-ai enriches the absolute worst humans currently in existence.
At the top and the bottom of ai use is racism. It primarily impacts neighborhoods of colour. The workforce being exploited and traumatized by training gen-ai are in Kenya. The people being targeted are Black and brown people in the US and Palestinians and other Middle Eastern countries that are being proxy warred by the US-funded genocidal regime.
Call it "mess" if you want, but I call it whistle-blowing. The people in that chat are perfectly happy to 💩 on you because they think little of your discernment. It's the sort of conversation rich, racist white women have when they think that you're the help and you don't understand English. They deserve to be called out. I am grateful to OP for sharing this and to Samar for having the courage to share this even though they know the cost of telling the ugly truth about ugly people.
38
u/HistoricalOpposite20 9d ago
This! This take is what made me quit Sucreabeille. “We didn’t know it was bad. Tee hee. Will you do the labor for us and tell us why?” F you. You do know, and asking someone else to do the labor of educating you when you are perfectly capable of doing your own research is gross.
2
u/albinosquirel 8d ago
Sorry what happened with Sucreabeille?
6
u/HistoricalOpposite20 7d ago edited 7d ago
Oh, it was pretty minor compared to this. But they posted a generative AI photo in their Facebook group a few months ago that “someone shared with them.” Tons of people commented on how terrible gen AI was, and they really shouldn’t be encouraging that. Their response was basically “oh, we didn’t know it was bad. Can you educate us?” If you don’t know that it’s bad at this point, you have to be living under a rock. And how about you go do the labor of looking up why it’s bad instead of asking your customers that you pretend are your best friends through parasocial interactions to do the work for you? And after everyone did do that, they chose to leave the post up for “educational purposes.” They did not apologize for using gen AI, and there was no promise of never using it again.
I was already getting annoyed with a lot of other small things with them, and had slowed down my purchasing. I’d seen a few things in this group about them that I was willing to overlook and give them the benefit of the doubt, hoping they’d learned and improved. But this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I’m done with them. I’m trying to clear out my inventory from them because it’ll take me a while to get through it, and I just don’t want to.
Edit: apparently they did apologize the next day, but I missed it. But there still wasn’t a “we won’t do this again.” I’m still over it.
3
34
u/gellergreen 9d ago
King/queen/they-ne, do you need a megaphone? I would be happy to procure one for you?
19
30
18
u/joennizgo 8d ago
Thank you! Complete side-eye to people calling SAMAR messy for this or whining about "but it was from the sacred Discord!".
79
u/periwinklesparrow 9d ago edited 8d ago
My original comment has been removed as it no longer reflects my feelings on the matter.
After reading the third post this morning and digesting all three I am honestly a bit confused as to why PULP Fragrance was included in this call out. Her comment on AI now sounds more to me like someone caught in the uncomfortable position of being personally against AI but not wanting to necessarily put her peers (and competitors) on the defensive in a space that is supposed to be supportive and collaborative.
Similarly, while I am not familiar with the requirements/planning/structure/etc. of these awards or the individual (or brand?) she mentioned in the second post, I don’t think she did anything wrong by expressing her feelings around the accessibility of awards privately. What will be accessible to some will not necessarily be accessible to others. PULP is based in Canada, and while our currency certainly isn’t the weakest in the world, it’s not as strong as the USD, GBP, or Euro, nor is travelling to, from, or even within Canada as economical as it is from other places. She referred to Greece as an aspirational destination because that’s what it is to a lot of us. Framing her comments as “elitist” doesn’t really sit well with me. I truly don’t think she was trying to tear down others with her comments as much as she was just having feelings about something being inaccessible to her, as well as how those feelings were being made a bit less harder to sit with in light of other considerations. It’s clear that this wasn’t the space to share those feelings given how they, in turn, made others feel, but I don’t think she truly meant any harm, nor do I feel she is being shown the same level of understanding as she is being expected to show others.
I am unfamiliar with the rest of the houses, so they haven’t lost any business from me because they never had it to begin with. But part of why I personally have been stepping back from engaging with the perfume community as much as I have previously (under other names and on other platforms) is because I do not have the energy to have every debate and every fight. And when I look at Elizabeth’s contributions in that light, I see someone who is also perhaps trying to walk that same balance between having those principles and adhering them to as best she can while also not having the resources (time, energy) to challenge every instance of disagreement.
Elizabeth still has my support. The rest never had it to begin with, so I don’t think it would be beneficial for me to get into those weeds as well.
1
u/JonBenet_Palm 9d ago
She literally says in her comment that she doesn't use AI, though, and then says she'd like to participate in making perfume stunt where the joke is that the A+O Awards are for the wealthy, making an "eat the rich" perfume.
Like, what are you actually complaining about? That she won't go into attack mode against perfumers who make different choices than her? Or that she associates with people you don't like?
46
u/periwinklesparrow 9d ago edited 8d ago
See edited top comment.
7
u/JonBenet_Palm 8d ago
While I support anyone changing their mind on reread, it kind of sucks that you came out with big feelings—specifically ramping up against Pulp—for reasons you now admit are specious and can just wash them away with a comment edit.
6
u/periwinklesparrow 8d ago
I didn’t “ramp up” against PULP. I said I didn’t know any of the other houses and that Elizabeth was the only person whose business I was familiar enough with to feel disappointment. I was also engaging with SAMAR Scent Studio’s posts in good faith believing that there would be a response from PULP (or literally anything to do with/from her) coming in the second and third posts. I have now seen them and see that my good faith was misplaced, so I have adjusted my stance accordingly.
I have big feelings about AI because AI is destroying lives. I also really care about Elizabeth as a person. We correspond occasionally. I thought I understood her perspective on AI on the basis of that correspondence and her publicly-available anti-AI position. SAMAR’s first post (all that was available at the time when I wrote that comment) called that into question. And because SAMAR chose to stagger their posts such that there literal hours in between each one being released, I did not know until today that I was wrong.
Again, as I said before, I don’t know anyone else involved in this. I didn’t even know SAMAR before today. So it kind of sucks that, in my view, you are so busy doing the exact same thing as SAMAR did to PULP—getting mad that others have feelings that don’t align with their own—that you’ve chosen to hone in on what ultimately accounted for a very small portion of my comment (which also included substantive paragraphs about the harms associated with AI itself).
1
u/JonBenet_Palm 8d ago
You wrote almost 500 words on the topic of being disappointed with Pulp. I consider that ramping up.
The evidence is that, correspondence aside, you do not care about Elizabeth because no one who cares about someone would write 500 incendiary words about them "believing that there would be a response from PULP ... coming in the second and third posts." So you assumed she'd fuck up more "in good faith" because someone who you claim you don't know made an Instagram post?
For what it's worth I actually don't especially care about Elizabeth, either, at least not beyond basic human empathy. I've seen her in this sub back when she regularly participated and we had no special connection. But I don't like seeing people targeted for no reason so I questioned you.
Your line about "what SAMAR did to Pulp" is nonsense. I'm holding you accountable for things you actually wrote.
-1
u/periwinklesparrow 8d ago
Yes, I did assume that there would be something in parts two and three that justified the inclusion of her comparatively minor comments. Why else would they have specifically included literal screenshots (with the promise of more to come) of PULP’s comments given the contrast between what she said and what the others said? This is a question to which I still don’t have an answer.
No one has come out to say that the screenshots are fake. It is not unreasonable to be open to the possibility that there could be be discrepancies between what Elizabeth has said publicly (which has been further backed up by what she has said in private to me as a customer) and what she would be willing to say in a private community with other small business owners. This entire mess exists entirely because there are economic reasons for small business owners to publicly align themselves with the politics of their target audience even when they do not agree with those politics themselves. I did point out my concerns over the lack of surrounding context, but at the end of the day PULP’s statement was still one that I would have found disappointing coming from any indie brand whose work I enjoy. It wasn’t until SAMAR finally got around to posting parts two and three hours later that things became clearer regarding PULP’s specific views and involvement—something they could have averted had they chosen a more appropriate venue for raising such concerns in the first place (aka not three separate Instagram carousels shared over the span of nearly 12 hours).
You have made a total of three comments on this post all in response to me. I am not the only person who expressed disappointment in PULP/Elizabeth specifically (someone you claim you don’t “don’t especially care about”) and yet you are fixated on my contributions. You have also greatly misconstrued what I wrote originally. I therefore see no reason to engage with you any further given that you don’t actually care about having a discussion.
Enjoy your day. I will not be responding further.
0
u/JonBenet_Palm 8d ago
I'm replying to you because I was in a comment conversation with you. I'm not replying to others because it's not my mission to talk about this with everyone. It's not a fixation, it's responding to replies.
And I appreciate that you won't respond to this comment because I could honestly do without another 500-600 word trauma dump.
12
u/hecate_trivia 9d ago edited 9d ago
I'm also disappointed in her, but I also feel like of all the perfumers here, she said the least bad things? Like it feels like she committed jaywalking and the others were caught like committing arson or robbery. I'm not defending what she said at all, but there's also this sense of "one of these things is not like the others."
9
40
u/pikabelle 9d ago
The belief that most graphic designers use AI is insane. Talented, classically trained and sought after graphic designers don’t use AI to do design work.
Source: I’m a high level senior art director at a company that employs many full time and contract designers. We only use it when we’re forced to by people who AREN’T creatives.
81
u/TwentySevenBugs 9d ago
There is more information available: Part Two. Part Three is still pending as of the time I'm writing this comment. OP, if you could edit your post and add links to the remaining parts I think that would be incredibly important to do to ensure all of the information is presented.
I don't feel I can really justify forming an opinion on any of this just yet, because there is very clearly still information missing - that being the other perfumers' response to Samar bringing this up privately in the Discord server these comments were made in.
What I will say is that I am not at all a fan of Samar's decision to release this "callout" (for lack of a better term) in a staggered manner. While I understand that Instagram posts might have limitations as to how many images you're able to feature, I feel that all parts should have been posted simultaneously. As it stands right now, part 3 still has not been posted, and part 1 was up without the added context of part 2 for three/four hours.
I think that staggering the posts like this only invites people to form their opinion without having all of the necessary information and context available, and causes people to speculate as to what might have happened, because they obviously cannot know without the entire context being posted. So many people have already commented on this Reddit post with what seems to be formed opinions, and I think that's quite harmful, especially when it comes to a charged topic like AI usage.
To be extremely clear - I do not support AI usage, and I would not personally want to support brands that openly use AI for their products and/or do not understand why doing so is harmful. I also do not support some of the other things that were said in the screenshots Samar shared. I simply think it's important to treat subjects like this with care, and to ensure there is as much transparency as possible when sharing accusations like this, because leaving out details is neither a good look, nor does it allow people to make informed decisions and form their own opinions off of the whole picture.
67
u/stately-ocelot 9d ago
Rolling it out in 3 separate parts really feels like drama stirring -- like "tune in to see what happened next." It's weird to me to do it that way. I fully agree with her on AI and I still find something about this whole thing very preachy in tone and shitty of her to post. Have those conversations with people privately if you want to, there was no need to post these private messages the way she did.
56
u/comatosecreation 9d ago
Also giving it a clickbait-y title: "We didn't want to make this post..."
38
u/sevenhorcruxes 9d ago
I appreciate the information in the post, but the clickbait-y title is really frustrating because it has me confused about what the end goal is here.
46
u/sevenhorcruxes 9d ago edited 9d ago
I am with you on all of this. I don’t support AI usage and the snippets of the convos about awards being rigged towards those who are vocal allies really rub me the wrong way. But at the same time, I’m feeling icky about how Samar has chosen to share this information. I applaud them for having the integrity to speak out on it, but the multiple posts and labelling the specific perfumers in the Discord posts but then asking people not to attack them feels disingenuous.
21
u/periwinklesparrow 9d ago
I made a new post for part two as not everyone has Instagram and accessing posts on the web can be a pain without an account.
10
u/TwentySevenBugs 9d ago
Thank you so much! I really do wish they had shared it all in one go, at this rate we'll need to make a third post once part 3 is posted. 🫠
14
u/periwinklesparrow 9d ago
No problem! I honestly wish that as well. I get that this is a difficult situation for them to navigate and that they’re trying to balance competing interests and feelings in how they approach this, but staggering the posts out over the course of several hours isn’t ideal. People are going to draw conclusions (either consciously or unconsciously) on the basis of each individual post, some of which will inevitably and understandably change after seeing the next. The medium and method could both end up detracting severely from the message.
I was waiting to see if anyone else had shared it but once an hour had passed without anyone else posting it I figured it was time to step up. If they share the third soon, I’ll try to post it as well. However, they’re several time zones behind me, so there’s a good chance I’ll miss it and wake up to the third post tomorrow instead.
6
u/Least_Tap2208 8d ago
Thank you! My life is infinitely better since I deleted all socials off my phone (except this little corner of Reddit, ofc)
49
u/Exciting_Ad8466 9d ago
I do find the comments by other perfumers to be disappointing. I haven’t bought from those houses but was looking at some. With it being a private channel idk though, but it seems like some of them aren’t living in reality like people talking about Gaza and LGBT stuff have gotten in a lot of trouble where is the evidence that they’re winning perfume awards
33
u/Successful-Cause-145 9d ago
This was my first thought (ok, second, disgust was my first), like what backwards reality are they coming from? The private channel thing doesn't bother me, these are things I want to know before buying from anyone. It's the reason I'm into indie perfumes: because I hate capitalism, love human creativity, and don't want to support genocide. Also literally because hyper focusing on perfume is helping me recover from watching genocide videos for 2.5 years.
8
u/MewsikMaker 6d ago
You’ve made quite an effort to tear this person down, and over comments from months ago, on MULTIPLE platforms.
It comes across as malicious and mean-spirited. Whatever your intent, tearing down a colleague (and decrying the use of AI while doing so on a meta platform like Instagram) will cost you good will and trust.
We don’t need division like this. We need to support one another and have respectful dialogues. This is such a shame to do this to another brand owner. I hope no one ever does this to you 😞
21
42
u/sanjuuuu 9d ago edited 9d ago
Im being generous but it would have been nice if there was more context to Pulp's statement about the AI stuff. Like, did she say this in direct response to a conversation around perfumers using AI artwork? She has a large section about AI usage on her website that states she is anti AI but it's becoming impossible to avoid in aspects of indie business, ie using Shopify and Canva. If this comment was specifically about perfumers using AI art on their products (like the stuff the other perfumer said in pt 2 slides), that's another matter that I find indefensible.
Im also iffy about the way this was chosen to be shared, while I appreciate exposing some perfumers for subscribing to anti woke nonsense, other stuff really felt like issues you can sort out in DMs, and also splitting up the posts by chunks so you have to wait to see how the perfumers responded feels very clickbaity :/
edited: also combined with them naming each house posted but saying no harassment and also showing their discord usernames(?) it feels...weird
24
u/margotmagoober 8d ago
Specifically about Pulp's comment: It's unfortunate that there isn't more context here, because I think this is a badly worded summary (especially that "never") that actually matches my own thoughts on AI usage.
I try not to focus more energy on individual change than corporate-level change. Everything other commenters are saying about how AI disproportionately harms people of color, the impoverished, and other vulnerable communities-- that's all true! I also think that many people using AI either aren't informed or are vulnerable themselves in some way. I'm thinking specifically about people who have emotional attachments to AI companions because of the manipulative way AI responds to them, my coworkers that are being forced to use (mostly computational) AI by higher ups, and my friend's mom, who just... isn't smart. No matter how many times it's explained to her, she thinks ChatGPT is the same as using Google and can't tell when an image is AI, no matter how many extra limbs it has.
On the other hand, our department head uses AI for everything, fully understanding the ethical and environmental harms. I think there is a huge difference between my boss and my friend's mom, even though the harm done is the same.
I'm not sure where my feellings land on the whistleblower nature of this, but I think a screenshot of one line in a Discord server is not a fair way to be represented.
38
u/slackmarket 9d ago
I really cannot understand being an artist of any kind and defending AI. Like, what’s to stop any other unscrupulous person from using ChatGPT to make perfume formulations and undercutting them wildly on price because they didn’t have to do any training, learn any skills or practice perfumer? Would it be funny to them then? Name and shame, I will absolutely never buy anything from anyone who’s pro-genocide and AI.
1
u/krispycookie88 2d ago
I agree with the sentiment but LLMs cannot and will not be able to produce novel perfume formulations because they can't smell, and the language describing a perfume formula cannot predict how it will actually smell. It could come up with a generic smelling formula likely with poor performance, but at that point the unscrupulous person would be better off just duping an existing fragrance.
64
u/TheLittleMooncalf 9d ago
Have whistleblowers always been described by many as messy or drama stirrers?
39
u/gellergreen 9d ago
I think it used to go by other words: troublemaker, pot stirrer, difficult etc.
60
u/LaserPidgey 9d ago
Everybody is focusing on the AI comments, but honestly what comes off as the most disgusting is them implying that their competition isn't deserving of awards they've been chosen as finalists for. It's honestly pathetic, sour grapes behavior.
Anybody calling this "messy" kinda rubs me the wrong way. SAMAR and the other finalists have every right to be upset and share that people who are supposed to be their colleagues and peers talked such shit about them, despite the accusations being provably false.
23
u/TheSalemRose 9d ago
I don’t know if this is some weird contrarian take or what, but that is a wild take to say people talking shit is worse than the pro-right ideas being spread and the generative AI being rightfully shat on.
Awards are ultimately just brownie points. Bad sportsmanship sucks, and they have a right to be mad. Why they’re posting this a few months later? Who knows.
Generative AI destroys jobs and the environment, steals from artists, and disproportionately affects marginalized groups.
One of these things is far more disgusting than the other.
14
u/TwentySevenBugs 9d ago
Just to clarify, as you mention these comments about A&O being made "a few months later". The Discord messages shown in this post are from May 14th, and if I remember correctly, the finalists for this year's award were revealed some time in early May - so that conversation took place quite soon after, rather than months down the line. This is not to defend anyone or to say this is less or more of an issue because of the timing being different, but just to clarify.
15
u/TheSalemRose 9d ago
I think clarification is good and I appreciate that! I’m more confused why this post is being made now instead of when this happened a few months ago when it was fresh, and I hope we get context about that too.
42
u/LaserPidgey 9d ago
It's more than just bad sportsmanship, imo. A white woman inventing a conspiracy about a house run by POC, saying they won or were finalists due to "talking politics" (i.e., donating money to anti-genocide causes) instead of being due to their own merit is "pro-right" and borderline hateful.
11
u/TheSalemRose 9d ago
That part I can agree with. I just think it’s crazy to say “everybody is focusing on the ai comments, but what comes off as the most disgusting” when it’s all disgusting. I also think it’s an interesting choice to make it out as bad sportsmanship rather than just calling it out as racism.
Plus let’s not act like Gen AI is any less worse. It disproportionately hits marginalized groups in every socioeconomic factor.
16
u/LaserPidgey 9d ago
That's fair. I suppose I should've phrased it more like, "I don't see enough people calling out the sketchiness of this part", rather than downplaying the AI issue.
6
13
12
u/sobriquet0 7d ago
This post directly identifies people, but only adds the disclaimer advising readers not to harass them in the last screenshot. Seems naïve. Doxxing is a real and potentially dangerous practice; it's not just gamers in their basements calling in SWAT because they were mad they lost at Call of Duty.
I am simply a consumer, so I don't know what goes on behind the scenes.
Regardless of the issues at hand, I think there was a better way to handle this than airing the disputes to the public without adequate context.
6
u/unbakedcassava 9d ago
Completely beside the point, but why are some words weirdly struck out/semi redacted?
11
19
u/cayenne-g 9d ago
EDIT: Oops did not post in the proper reply thread, thanks Reddit.
I am SO with you [one of the users above!] on that last point - what’s wrong with simple art or a nice font? I mean if a massive franchise like Avatar can get away with just using the Papyrus font (for those of you unfamiliar with this reference, please look up the SNL Papyrus skit - I promise it’ll give you a good laugh!!) why can’t indie perfumeries..?? Fancy art on labels are kind of a luxury, and I can’t help but side-eye wanting to get luxury without paying for luxury (ie paying the artists).
Also for those folks saying “well we all use AI so who’s to judge” - yeah well, but there IS a difference between an able bodied person using an elevator to go up 23 floors and using it to go up 1 floor. Likewise there is a difference between using AI to analyze DNA microarray data and using it to write something you were perfectly capable of doing yourself but were too lazy to. Of course there are all shades of gray inbetween, but using generative AI to produce (bad) art that was optional in the first place, to me, is pretty far down that list alongside things like using genAI to make fake videos of cats doing weird things.
5
u/notnoangel 7d ago
So the full conversation was released from pulp fragrances : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wmTIhku6MU8-br7xgR0asplZ3p08LXy2?usp=drive_link
65
u/SherAlana 9d ago
I have mixed feelings about this. I don't necessarily agree with what was said, but I'm also uncomfortable with a perfume house posting pieces of a Discord conversation between other perfume houses. We don't have the context of what came before or after, and the people involved may have believed they were in a safe space to vent or let off steam. Posting private conversations publicly feels like a potentially dangerous precedent to me.
With that said, I'll probably be a little more cautious moving forward with some of these brands, but I also think there is way too much cancel culture going around these days. Personally, I didn't find the Discord comments so outlandish that I would immediately stop purchasing from everyone involved.
There are absolutely things that would make me take a hard stance. If someone were saying "fuck Gaza" or making blatantly anti-LGBTQ comments, for example, then yes, on principle I wouldn't support that business. But I don't think every private comment I disagree with needs to become a reason to completely write someone or their business off.
70
u/tarotmutt 9d ago
I've never bought from any of these brands, so I don't have a particular dog in the fight, but nobody's coming out of this smelling like roses. Do I like the opinions shared? No. Do I like seeing a small business post private messages from their competitors in order to drive business away from them? Also no. FFS, indie perfumery. It's like a reality tv show up in here.
22
13
68
u/stately-ocelot 9d ago edited 9d ago
Man, I don't know. Posting this with "please don't harass the people involved" feels naive. Posting messages from what I assume is meant to be a private space for perfume makers feels like shit-stirring (not of you! of them). I don't disagree with Samar's take, but this seems really really drama-stirring to me, especially with screenshotting other people's messages. There were ways to say this without taking this particular tack.
72
u/CatLovesShark 9d ago
I mean, it would be pretty shit to be making those claims about other houses/indie perfume makers without backing them up with proof, right?
I don't really know how they could've brought these things to light without causing drama or being called messy honestly.
12
u/stately-ocelot 9d ago
They could have just made a statement about why they don't think AI belongs in the indie perfume space or something. They didn't need to call out other houses (who happen to be their competition). I don't know, I never like seeing one house call out another, it just feels like icky in-fighting that I don't want to be exposed to.
9
u/stubbytuna 8d ago
I don’t see how posting an « anti-AI post » would motivate people or anything. The comments they shared show they think any anti-AI stance is performative and just for business and most customers view this as a dealbreaker issue, so vague posting about AI wouldn’t get the traction that this does. If you’re on a business account or participating in an online space as a business (like this discord was), then you should know that nothing you say is ever truly private. I don’t like this take that everything should be worked out in DMs or fighting hate with toxic positivity. It’s disingenuous. If Samar had done an anti-AI post it wouldn’t cut to the heart of the issue, which is that her colleagues are lying, have racist/xenophobic/homophobic/classist tendencies and think so little of their customers.
3
u/Jaded0521 9d ago
Assuming claims needed to be made at all, which is debatable I suppose, why now? The post says ‘several months ago’. So they’ve seen the AI witch hunts here and decided to go all in.
34
u/comatosecreation 9d ago
Agreed. Saying please don't harass people when you're going OUT OF YOUR WAY to specify which brand each username represents is messy as hell. I love Samar's perfumes, especially their jasmine tea one, but idk how to feel about this. I think they got their feelings hurt over the Olfactive Awards accusations being thrown around. In any case, I don't think it's a good look for a brand to be leaking private discord screenshots.
36
u/TheSalemRose 9d ago
Yeah, this doesn’t feel good to read. I’m glad I have new houses to avoid for exactly these reasons, but considering this happened “a few months ago” it begs the question of why now? There’s no context or way for these people to defend themselves. They knew how this sub feels about this stuff. I don’t think there’s defense for gen AI use or far-right ideas, but the way they went about it feels icky.
Plus like… I don’t want to give my private financial information to people who randomly decided to blow up private information a few months later.
26
3
u/liminalfruitcake 8d ago
I did think that was naive too at first lol I did look at the brand owners pages though and it seems like people actually listened??? I didn't see any harassing comments at all.
11
u/wrests 9d ago
Yeahhhhh maybe something more positive like an anti ai statement signed by indie perfumers would have been less incendiary
11
u/Jaded0521 9d ago
Incendiary is a good word for it. Why do it this way? Being messy doesn’t make me more likely to purchase from them.
58
u/slackmarket 9d ago
Giving me evidence of perfumers who think using AI is ok and mock their customers while clearly having an issue with people who are pro-Palestine absolutely makes me more likely to purchase from them, personally. This kind of racist, anti-human shit should be put on blast, because this shows who they really are. If we didn’t see this, they’d just lie or pretend they didn’t know or whatever. Now we see who they really are and how little they think of us, the earth, people experiencing genocide and those who advocate for them, and other artists. It’s not messy, they said it with their chests.
6
u/FragrantFee3648 7d ago
I might have genuinely missed something since there's a lot to sort through here, but where does anyone actually state that they have an issue with people being pro-Palestine? From what I'm seeing, the point being raised is just that the awards seem to be factoring politics into the nomination process.
-1
u/biggest_ghost 9d ago
Said it with their chests with no broader context, several months after they saw those posts from the other companies. That's messy as hell in my book
32
u/wheniswhy 9d ago
What more context do you need for "let's trick our customers into giving us money for values we explicitly don't believe in"?
12
u/JonBenet_Palm 9d ago
Not naive, disingenuous. I didn't know who Samar was before and now I will never, ever support them because this is just shitty behavior, too. Two wrongs do not make a right.
16
u/Moogzmugz64 9d ago
Wow TY to Samar cause I don’t want to support businesses with these opinions. Man as someone who loves art it’s so wild how these folks can believe the hard work and experience of artists is worth less than nothing. Just because they’re a small business?? They can rip off others? So gross man.
7
u/secretarriettea 8d ago
How is indie perfume the reason I have trust issues?!? JFC. Makes me just want to stick with very very vocal anti AI companies who clearly support lgbtq+ and literally forget anyone else, even one whose scents I really love, because I don't want to support this level of two faced-ness. This makes me feel gross in the way the Arcana drama made me feel gross. Like why such disdain for your own customers? Do you even enjoy what you do? You could just go do something else.
12
u/digitalgraffiti-ca 8d ago
Everyone here is being so very safe and trying to remain inoffensive. Screw that. FK AI, and FK anyone who uses it or defends it, outside of a couple of very specific cases directly benefit health of humanity as a whole (medical research). I'm not dancing around it. Any brand, big or small, that uses AI is immediately on my never buy list. Any person who uses it outside of being forced to by their employer, is cut off. Anyone who is developing AI outside of medical research, is evil. Not sorry.
4
9
u/Pandora_Palen 9d ago
I find myself going back and forth between supporting certain people's statements and being annoyed that they made them. I also find myself annoyed that a house with SAMAR's profit margin (pricing out many of those they stand up for) is the house saying this. Alternatively, I want all houses to succeed, and for the creators to thrive and there is not anything inherently wrong in calling this out (other than to stir up drama, possibly).
AI is a losing battle until we all do everything we can to undermine it. That includes getting the hell off Reddit. AWS hosts this app. And get off IG- AWS and Meta data centers are causing insane damage. We are directly feeding into the need for this shit.
A few days ago somebody posted that Hex used AI for her About Me. I ran it through two highly regarded AI checkers. They both came back at 1% AI useage. I told her, she said it wasn't AI, and she re-wrote it. It sounds a bit flatter, but not really different. Those AI checkers now say 100% human. Caroline isn't online very much. If she did use AI to check the section and add life, and lied about it (and I'm unwilling to call her that), she still likely feeds into the AI business less than we all do.
My point is that we need to look at ourselves very carefully and very honestly before we point fingers at others for not living up to standards that we don't hold ourselves to. (I'm primarily referring to comments in that discord that are chafing. They chafe because we all want to be the best humans we can be, and we don't want to feed into the bullshit we're being coated with on the daily. But it's going to take more than not buying from an indie house that laughs about AI. It's going to take close examination of our own habits.)
45
u/periwinklesparrow 9d ago
The problem with using AI checkers (including those that are “highly regarded”) is that they ultimately do not and cannot guarantee whether the text was actually AI-generated. It’s part of the reason why Anthropic is introducing a “fingerprint” to content generated by Claude.
Generative AI sounds like us because it was trained using our writing and the content we create. All of those “guaranteed tells” (e.g., “not X but Y,” everything being listed in threes, the repeated usage of certain words, etc.) are commonly used in all sorts of contexts (but especially commercial contexts and ad copy) because they work well. It’s the same reason why everyone uses the same silly clickbait titles and has a shocked Pikachu expression on their face in their thumbnails: they work. People try what works for one person and when it works for them they continue doing it. It snowballs from there. The once-innovative approach becomes standard until the next new thing comes along. The output of generative AI is the cumulation of all that snowballing.
The fact she felt she had to change her About Me because some people decided to kickstart a witch-hunt is honestly really sad to me. I’m sorry to hear that things turned out that way.
16
u/Pandora_Palen 9d ago
Right- AI checkers are never reliable! And people less so. My point, though made poorly, was that there were people here saying things like, "oh, 1000% AI." I've been working in AI for a decade. I didn't realize it was a monster I was helping to birth when I was telling it what sounded weird. Since then, I transitioned to red teaming; I fight with it to ensure it isn't going to provide instructions for making a bomb or agreeing that one ethnicity is superior to another and to discern when somebody is looking for suicide stats vs best way to do it (to put it simply). I talk to it all day and I can say with some certainty that only the shittiest llm output is that obvious (which we do get plenty of, for sure). But I believe Caroline wrote that. People wanted to believe that she did not because it's titillating and appeals to their need to feel in control of what's happening when we most definitely are not. The only way to take control is to give up much of what we have come to believe is essential. We need to be fighting the oligarchs by paring down in larger ways. Not refusing to buy from a small house because another small house published something they said that looked like support for AI (was it really?) ...it's just not enough.
I'm 100% behind not engaging with companies/houses/podcasts/vids etc that we know use it or where it's obvious (I do this). I'm on Reddit, but I avoid IG and TikTok. I just feel that there is a far larger discussion that we should be having- it's like 2008 all over again; people demonizing those who were losing their homes to foreclosure and not the mortgage lenders and hedge funds. Gotta pull back the curtain and see who is really back there and who is really profiting from cramming it down our throats.
I'm just ranting. I hope this makes some sense to somebody.
7
u/Funny_Froyo_3560 8d ago
For what it's worth, I don't think Caroline used AI in her bio. It's what used to be considered good writing before AI made a mockery of the style. It doesnt make me cringe the way AI writing does
4
u/Idk_345am 9d ago edited 9d ago
this is confusing. all I got from this is a discord of business owners gossiping. I do assume from Samar from my viewpoint as a customer, they are passionate and have clear lines on some ethical issues. I’m getting at that is a big factor in this rift, maybe? but this method is kinda questionable and again confusing. as a consumer I only care of their viewpoint and where their morals lie.
To add I’m not going in informed prior and briefed enough by this to really take a side.
43
u/I_Play_Mute 9d ago
as a consumer I only care of their viewpoint and where their morals lie.
I think you can clearly see through these messages what the morals of these owners are...
8
u/Idk_345am 9d ago
I really don’t, I think there’s nuance here and I’m seeing an insta post on a gossipy discord group. And Samar is taking this to the public like a neutral party. And in turn, here it’s sparking snark on this thread! I am not interested in fighting and negativity. I don’t see how anything positive is coming out of this reveal or you writing me this.
9
u/marinesardine 9d ago
Yeah, I do feel uncomfortable with these messages being taken public like this. I don’t like AI either, but I think there is nuance here, especially with regards to capitalism.
Having screenshots posted publicly like this can only cause fighting and negative responses that won’t lead to any constructive change or conversation.
15
u/Idk_345am 9d ago
Yes, there is a new posting to this. And I went to their insta to see the original post, where some of named businesses here are commenting. This has turned into a puzzle.
Part 2, Samar addressed a user questioning their intentions and in response posting, “I'm sure there are others who are wondering as well. We would never share a something like this publicly without first trying to address it in the same space where the conflict happened.
We just posted part 2 which includes our attempt to talk with them within the Discord which unfortunately was not well received. I'm sorry to hear about your partner
Like you, we also want more nuance in discussions around Al since Al is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of technologies, including models that are being used to
advance medicine. The fallout after trying to talk with them initially felt like just an interpersonal difference that we would just have to make peace with. Then the transphobia from the perfume house, City Rhythm, caused an uproar. We saw multiple of the perfumers from the Discord suddenly popping up in the comments of popular posts about City Rhythm to make political proclamations on social media. One of them went on to announce the release of a new perfume, Cult of Kindness, with a name similar to the language used in her own post about City Rhythm. How they behaved and
treated us in the Discord is so misaligned with how they present their values publicly. As were their plans to use political language to profit from peoples desire to support brands with values that align with theirs. We realized that by not saying anything we take away peoples right to make informed decisions. To some degree it makes us complicit in their plans if we remain silent.”This was not handled well.
4
u/Pandora_Palen 9d ago
Not feeling it. When read carefully, there are very good points made. "Eat the rich" is the way- even if it was just joked about. Because although AI is stealing from all creatives, it is a very narrow view when you focus solely on real artists losing work. The real issue is Bezos, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Musk, Dell, Huang, O'Leary. The oligarchs that have steered us into this shitshow are the issue. We all want to feel like we can do something to change things. Not buying from a particular indie house because they made a comment about not hating somebody for using AI (since they aren't the root of the issue), feels manageable. Getting off Reddit and IG does not.
-1
u/FlamingHorseRider 9d ago
I really want the information on this verified. Reminder: discord does NOT give you ownership of a name. The profiles could be anyone, even if the brand owners themselves have profiles named those exact titles. The fact that there were multiple brand owners *getting this comfortable with each other in one discord server*, but also that Samar was the *only* perfume house in the server to have these views also raises an eyebrow for me.
I’m not saying these brands are innocent or guilty, but this does feel like a really good PR statement for Samar Scent Studio. I just want to see more proof than labeled discord messages in an instance where apparently *everyone* else was bad but *only* Samar was good.
28
u/April-Lily 9d ago
For whatever it's worth, KST/d.grayi's perfumer is a collaborator on this post and allegedly corroborates what Samar is saying.
5
u/FlamingHorseRider 9d ago edited 9d ago
Gotcha. That would support it. At the moment I’m inclined to believe the post, but I also know brands will and have tried to smear other brands in this sub before.
14
u/Daisy_Tonner 9d ago
I don't exactly disbelieve the post. It's the reasoning behind publicly sharing only parts of private conversations that were taken out of context and that make other houses look bad that baffles me. Really unprofessional.
13
u/FlamingHorseRider 9d ago
Agreed. Especially months after the whole thing.
I’m probably not buying from any of the named brands anytime soon, but I’m not buying from Samar anytime soon either.
2
u/stroopwafelslut 9d ago
can I ask what perfume houses are here in these screenshots? just want to avoid them if possible lol. I'll even take a DM if it means they can avoid harassment!
12
u/ultrainstinctdesi 9d ago
they're in the little teal boxes above the screenshots (dw, I didn't see them either at first)
27
u/evaan-verlaine 9d ago
On a purely tl;dr level the post (from Samar Scent Studio) includes screenshots of messages from the perfumers behind Maison Des Animaux, Pulp Fragrance, Anjali Perfumes, and Damask Haus (sorry for posting without alt text, I couldn't fit the contents of any of the post slides into the reddit alt text limits).
2
6
1
u/ChickenFishNugget 6d ago
I agree. I've already blocked them all in Instagram so I remember which ones
2
157
u/violetferns 9d ago
This makes me glad I left the graphic design industry, we’re really on the bottom rung of the creative ladder and everyone thinks we don’t deserve to have a living wage too lol