RuPaul’s Drag Race criticised after uploading (and deleting) ‘soulless’ AI animated special

Posted on by Samantha

RuPaul’s Drag Race has been criticised by fans after social media accounts for the show uploaded an ‘animated special’ that heavily featured the use of AI – that is has now deleted.

There’s been plenty of spinoffs for RuPaul’s Drag Race over the years, but none quite like this.

Uploaded 1 July to the YouTube channel for the show, which is currently airing its tenth All Stars season, fans were initially thrilled to see what was titled “Jinkx & Plasma’s Gay Adventure! 🎭🌈 Original Animated Holiday Short | RuPaul’s Drag Race 👠✨”.

The short featured animated versions of season five and All Stars 7 winner, and Broadway icon, Jinkx Monsoon, alongside season sixteen’s musical theatre queen Plasma, travelling down a river on a boat lined with iconic RuPaul’s Drag Race moments, set to Shirley Bassey’s “This Is My Life”.

And though the animation starts off with the characters, who are both seemingly voiced by their real life counterparts, looking hand-drawn, the ‘special’ quickly switches into using images that are clearly AI (Artificial Intelligence) generated.

The short is no longer available to view on YouTube, with a link posted to Reddit indicating: “This video is private”. It is not clear when it was taken down.

Despite this, clips of the short, along with a hefty dose of criticism, have found their way to X.

“The RPDR channel just uploaded a AI animated special, and I just don’t get why they didn’t just hire an artist to do the whole thing… it looks soulless,” wrote popular Drag Race commentary channel GreenGay.

“Drag Race is a show thriving off the creativity of queer artists both on screen and behind the scenes. Instead of using artists we were given AI slop that looks like awful. Y’all do better please,” added JackFed, a similar channel.

Fans have even pointed out that the special ‘re-created’ moments from RuPaul’s Drag Race history that actually happened, rendering it pointless.

“Drag Race released a terrible animated short and it features a Shirley Bassey song playing over AI slop. I’m actually offended,” another added.

Most of the criticism of the short’s usage of AI stems from a show famous for championing human creativity essentially ‘cutting corners’ and depriving human artists of work.

Thus far, neither Jinkx, Plasma nor RuPaul’s Drag Race have publicly commented on the short being uploaded then deleted, aside from Plasma reposting a comment from season 16 sister Megami, who wrote: “AI could never create a masterpiece like this. Support REAL artists!”

Back in the real world, Cynthia Lee Fontaine, Daya Betty and Ginger Minj last episode went through to the semi-finals of All Stars 10 in the Purple Bracket, where they will join the Orange Bracket champs Aja, Bosco and Irene the Alien, and the Pink Bracket‘s Jorgeous, Lydia B. Kollins and Mistress Isabelle Brooks.

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10 continues on Fridays on Paramount+ in the US and WOW Presents Plus internationally.

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