In a powerful critique of modern social media, the poet and artist Frieda Hughes has publicly declared the end of her love affair with Instagram, blaming a flood of convincing AI-generated video fakes for destroying her trust in the platform.
The End of an Era for Authentic Content
Hughes, writing on Friday 14 November 2025, recounted how she was once an avid consumer of the platform's charming, everyday content. She described a fondness for the playful antics of cats' paws, the curious doings of pets around kitchen bins, and the destructive escapades of dogs with soft furnishings.
She was also easily addicted to clever recipe videos, which she enjoyed watching even if she never intended to cook them herself. This engagement with the genuine, if curated, lives of others was what made the platform so compelling for her.
The Deceptive Rise of AI Fakery
This week, however, marked a turning point. Hughes explained that distinguishing reality from sophisticated AI fabrications has become a time-consuming and ultimately futile task. She highlighted two specific examples that shattered her illusion.
The first was a video of a gorilla swinging from a branch that broke. The AI-generated clip was so flawed that the creature's fingers were left still clinging to the stump after the branch had snapped, an obvious editing mistake in the digital fiction.
The second fake depicted a man of gargantuan size, weighing a full tonne, being craned from a top-floor American window on a stretcher, barely clothed. While almost convincing, the AI's imperfect editing ultimately revealed the lie, making her feel her attention had been stolen by a deception.
A Loss of Trust and Engagement
The consequence of this pervasive fakery is a profound loss of faith. Hughes stated that she no longer believes in the achievements people post and doubts their postings in general.
For the first time, she has no interest in Instagram. The AI fakery created by others now completely obscures the genuine reality that once so captivated and engaged her, leaving the platform a shadow of its former self in her eyes.
