Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

Annie from Tennessee has just gone viral on TikTok for sharing a coloring book she claimed she had bought from Chinese online marketplace Temu.

The book, titled Curious Kitty’s Adventures comes with a cover showing a cat sitting in a room filled with flowers and a medieval village outside the window — it seemed like a perfect choice for unwinding after a long day.

But after Annie received her order and started flipping through the pages, she quickly noticed that some of the animals were so disfigured, they may as well be from Chernobyl.

More info: TikTok

Sometimes buying stuff online feels like entering a lottery — you don’t know what you’re going to get

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

Image credits: Focal Foto / flickr (not the actual photo)

This woman, for example, thought she ordered a cute coloring book from Temu

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

Image credits: annieleighsweettea

I got a coloring book on Temu and some markers because I’ve been liking coloring a lot lately. And here’s the cover.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

And the back. Cute, right?

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

And when she got to the coloring part, things kept getting weirder and weirder

And then we got the first page…

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

What’s that? Is that his foot or his tail? I don’t know.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

Um, I’m not sure what’s happening there.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

Okay, so a couple weird ones.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

That one’s mostly normal. It’s got some lumps.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

What’s going on with that?

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

Okay. What’s happening with that cat? The backgrounds are all normal. Flower pots and landscapes.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

I don’t even know what that is. What’s going on over here? And that’s the thing from SpongeBob that wants chocolate.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

Okay, that’s the most normal one I’ve seen. It has; I don’t know what’s going on; okay, maybe it’s not.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

Wow, wow, wow. And the floor is, wow.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

Okay, these ones are pretty; never mind. These are okay.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

There we go. That’s what a cat looks like.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

That one has five arms.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

That one looks normal. Okay, we’re getting it; we’re getting there. All right, so it’s not all of them.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

And we’re back.

You can watch her full video here

@annieleighsweettea What did temu do to these poor cats #temu #ai ♬ original sound – 🌸Annie🌸

AI-generated books are already being seen as cash grabs

Temu isn’t the only platform where sellers are trying to distribute their AI-generated coloring books. People have been talking about how there are similar ones offered on Amazon, too.

In fact, there are entire tutorials that promise to help you get into this practice and make big bucks.

And there’s a good reason why you don’t see big letters on the cover informing you about its artificial origins. Recently, scientists have found that for some, it challenges what it is to be human (and, as a result, probably deters them from buying such products).

For the study, which appeared in the June 2023 edition of Computers in Human Behavior, researchers led a series of psychology experiments involving AI art. In one, participants were shown two paintings, one was said to be AI-generated and the other as human-made. In another, the participants listened to two pieces of music, one supposedly composed by humans and the other by AI.

In reality, both paintings and songs were made entirely by either AI or humans. The researchers just randomly labeled one of the artworks in the sets as AI-made and the other one as human-made.

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

Image credits: cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)

Participants showed an overwhelming preference for artwork they thought was made by people.

In some places, authorities are trying to help the situation. For example, New York State Assemblymember Jonathan Rivera introduced a bill to mitigate the use of artificial intelligence-generated content in online bookselling.

The bill would require online booksellers who are distributing content created wholly or partially with generative AI to disclose such use before a sale.

“There’s no responsibility at all to have these people that are just churning out what they’re calling books and selling them quickly purely to make a profit, not to educate children, not to inform people, not to bring well-thought-out literature to people,” Rivera explained. “It’s all just a money grab.”

Interestingly, Rivera, who represents New York’s 149th District, said he was motivated to propose the bill after hearing about one of those scam classes that teach people how to make money quickly by mass-producing AI-generated books.

“As this new technology becomes interwoven into the publishing world, consumers deserve full transparency about who (or what) wrote, illustrated, or otherwise designed the books they are buying for themselves, their children, their students, or new language learners,” the bill’s justification section states.

But until such safeguards become standard practice, we’re left to make retaliatory TikToks to get back at dishonest businesses.

People have had a lot of colorful reactions to the TikTok

Woman Thinks She Bought A “Normal” Kitty Coloring Book, Starts Noticing Odd Things About It

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Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

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As a Visual Editor at Bored Panda, I indulge in the joy of curating delightful content, from adorable pet photos to hilarious memes, all while nurturing my wanderlust and continuously seeking new adventures and interests—sometimes thrilling, sometimes daunting, but always exciting!

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What do you think ?

POST

Carl Roberts 4 months ago

Even the coloring books are now made by AI. Sigh. Oh...and I refuse to watch TikTok videos.

28points

WindySwede 4 months ago

And we again learned not to buy anything from temu 🤷‍♂️🙂‍↔️

30points

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BoredWolfe 4 months ago

OP: how dare they churn out cheap, low-quality knock-off junk! Also OP: *buying from Temu*

20points

Okiedokie 4 months ago

…I just think the downsides of AI [like artists that just cannot keep up with computer generated stuff that will almost inevitably fix errors like this and then mass produce content] far outweigh the benefits…

17points