Why Did ‘Balenciaga Pope’ Go Viral?

This weekend, you might have seen a striking photo of Pope Francis, swagged out in a puffer jacket, in an AI-generated image that has been dubbed “Balenciaga Pope.”

Much like those AI-generated images of Donald Trump getting arrested, many assumed the image was a real photo, while others viewed it as a funny meme.

The image was generated by Midjourney and posted on Reddit by u/trippy_art_special, before spreading across Twitter and TikTok.

If one looks closely, the image can easily be identified as an AI creation; the pope’s ear is smudgy, his glasses melt into the shadow across his face, and his hand, clutching a coffee cup, is warped. Skin texture, as always, looks a bit waxy, but at first glance, many assumed the image was real.

Chrissy Teigen admitted that she’d been fooled by the image, writing on Twitter: “I thought the pope’s puffer jacket was real and didnt give it a second thought. no way am I surviving the future of technology.”

Of course, thousands of funny, striking images are generated by MidJourney users every single day; why did “Balenciaga Pope” go viral?

First off, the image was low-stakes; unlike the images of Trump’s “arrest,” the pope wearing a puffy jacket is not a world-changing event. Many users would have scrolled past the image on their timelines without bothering to fact-check if the image is real, because it doesn’t really matter.

Plus, it’s not hard to picture the pope wearing an attention-grabbing jacket; like the British Royal Family, Pope Francis exists in an uncanny realm, bound by the weight of tradition and the absurdity of modern celebrity.

Pope Francis already travels in a custom vehicle known as “the popemobile.” Is it such a stretch to imagine the Holy Father embracing the glamour of the catwalk? After all, the Catholic Church has never been concerned with subtlety; gaudiness, it seems, is close to godliness.

On Twitter, the image was paired with a scattering of real photos of Pope Francis, holding a microphone and signing a Lamborghini; the combo of real photos imbued the fake image with a veneer of authenticity.

Lastly, there’s just something funny about an elderly, dignified man being depicted as trendy (there’s a reason why AI-generated clips of President Joe Biden as a rapper and pot-smoking gamer have proved so popular).

Twitter users even began suggesting prompts to feed into Midjourney, so that anyone could create their own “Balenciaga Pope” — the Holy Father now comes in a range of colors.

While “Balenciaga Pope” wasn’t nearly as misleading as “outlaw Donald Trump,” the speed at which the image spread, along with the credulity of some social media users, sparked concerns that the public is not ready for incoming wave of misinformation threatened by the rise of generative AI.

Tech entrepreneur and startup founder Sinead Bovell told CNN that the world is “moments away from swimming in a sea of information, that we can't really distinguish what's real and what's not.”

This isn’t the first time the pope has at been the center of a misinformation crisis; in 2016, the Holy Father was believed to have endorsed Donald Trump’s president bid after a satirical website spread the story as a joke headline, and was interpreted as fact by some readers.

Indeed, this isn’t even the first time an image of Pope Francis has been jokingly repurposed; a 2015 photo of the pope clutching a microphone is still a popular meme.

Seemingly by sheer coincidence, Pope Francis recently voiced his thoughts on the future of generative AI, expressing optimism at the potential for the technology, while urging tech titans at the forefront of the AI revolution to act “ethically and responsibly."