As you scroll through your feed, you see a crisp 4K edit of your favorite anime: Jujutsu Kaisen. But something feels off. You watch closely, only to realize that the edit starts with an AI animation of Gojo morphing into Sukuna—strange… You continue to watch more videos, only to find AI edit after AI edit all about your favorite shows, movies, and video games. Every single clip seems to have some sort of artificial transition, which continues to become increasingly choppy. Seems like a non-issue, right? Unfortunately, wrong; this agenda of AI usage only promotes laziness and discredits actual editors who spend hours on their craft.
Artificial intelligence, or AI, has been on the rise in multiple fields around the globe—and one of these sectors is in social media edits. The editing community dates back to 2005, where the launch of YouTube marked the birth of fan editing. From there, community edits have grown from platforms like Tumblr and Vine to TikTok and Instagram. Millions of users can make or watch a variety of edits based on their favorite shows, movies, music, games, and more. But recently, platforms have started to push a new wave of editing: AI-generated templates and transitions. The issue with this trend is that platforms do not promote actual fan editing; rather, AI edits overshadow those who spend hours of hard work to achieve the same effect. It replaces the projects that thousands of teenagers and adults make with glitchy edits that are not even personal work. CHS freshman Paloma Trinidad shared her perspective.
“I think when an edit is made with AI, it feels less valuable,” Trinidad said. “I know from making edits that it takes a long time to work on those things—if you’re using AI, it’s kinda cheating. I hope that editing will always at least originate from being creative, yourself.”
The struggle to improve editing skills and gain recognition can be a barrier for beginners, but leaning on AI fails to help. Those who defend this use of AI state that it is “accessible” but do not understand that more traditional accounts have poured their time and effort into becoming skilled. Using AI to make intros, animations, and transitions between clips does not prove hard work; all it proves is that a person lacks the skill to do it themselves. The communities built around editing started on the foundation of learning videography and sharing those skills with the world. Regarding the learning process that each editor has experienced, thousands of Discord servers, group chats, Reddit communities, fandoms, and online meeting grounds were able to grow in what is known as the fan editing community today. CHS freshman Sophia Kim-Fozouni gave her opinion.
“The whole point of fan editing is that somebody made it—they put passion into it,” Kim-Fozouni said. “Having AI do the work defeats the whole point. Lowkey, you’re not learning anything.”
Social media editors work tirelessly to make a transition, let alone a simple edit—that is what makes their work unique. They bring creative entertainment for viewers, while AI edits only take away from artistic expression. Promote using effort and artistry instead of undermining millions of editors for unoriginal, crappy AI pieces.
