Did we give the customer too much credit,
Or were we simply too full of ourselves?
“It’s a fad, it will pass,” we said—
“People will see right through it instead.

Jobs are safe,” so we proclaimed.
A fad it may have been, but untamed—
The rare kind.
That stays,
Growing, learning, shifting ways,
Staking its claim to what once was ours,
Quietly pushing through unopened doors.

“The faces are weird,
The digits too many.
You can tell what’s real,
And because you can—so can anyone”.
Either the customer couldn’t,
Or they chose not to see,
What was off by a nose,
Or even a pinky.

“Hang on,” we thought,
“Surely no one’s going to buy a pint
If the hands and fingers holding the glass
Outnumber their own
Who could possibly buy into fashion
When the models selling it in the magazine
Have off-looking smiles with rows of teeth
Going on for miles and miles”

“It will die out.
Life will go back to normal.
We have nothing to worry about,”
We said—dread masked in hope.

But it refused to.
Instead, it grew.
It doubled down,
Then broke right through.
Became better.
Sharper.
Faster.
Cooler.

The customers we’d entrusted our salvation to?
They carried on—business as usual.
Buying what they did, without skipping a cue,
No matter if the ads
Were AI-run through,
Or written and styled
By me and you.