Key Takeaways
- An SEO specialist named Jesse Cunningham is reportedly using AI to create and distribute large volumes of low-quality content on platforms like Facebook and Pinterest for financial gain.
- His tactics include generating fake images, AI-written articles, and creating fictitious online personas, often targeting older women and fan communities.
- This approach, sometimes called “slop farming,” is having a negative impact on genuine content creators and making the internet a less reliable place for users.
- Cunningham views his methods as an easy way to make money and disrupt traditional content creation, while critics highlight the deceptive nature of these practices.
Jesse Cunningham, who describes himself as an SEO specialist using AI for results, has detailed his strategies for monetizing content on Facebook. He claims success by flooding the platform with AI-generated material, such as fake houseplant images and ChatGPT-created recipes.
In a livestream for a private group, Cunningham mentioned that one of his AI pages was previously flagged by Meta after he revealed its name publicly. He explained his preference for targeting devoted fandoms, whom he believes are easily excited, and older individuals, who he suggests may not realize the content is synthetic.
“I’m going after audience plus female,” Cunningham stated, aiming for older women on Facebook. This allows him to cross-post content to Pinterest, a platform with a predominantly female user base, effectively “killing two birds with one stone.” His target demographic is “fifty-plus female.”
During the recorded call, Cunningham expressed an ambition to disrupt the recipe niche with AI-generated recipes. When asked if these AI recipes actually work, he responded, “Of course they work. ChatGPT told me they work.”
Cunningham is one of many individuals using AI to generate “slop” content for profit. According to a report by Futurism, this process involves publishing numerous AI articles on websites fronted by fake bloggers with AI-generated headshots. These sites cover topics from recipes to DIY crafts.
He then posts AI-generated images linking to these sites on social media, earning money by imitating traditional content creators without the actual effort of creating original work. This flood of “parasitic AI slop” is increasingly evident on platforms like Pinterest and Facebook.
Futurism previously reported on Pinterest’s struggle with AI-generated content and how AI slop farmers exploited Facebook’s bonus program. Cunningham was highlighted for his openness in sharing his methods, which often involve copying the work of real bloggers.
Rachel Farnsworth, a food blogger from The Stay at Home Chef, told Futurism that such schemes are “devastating all of our businesses” and have “put a ton of people out of business.”
Cunningham promotes AI as a way to “pretty much print money online,” claiming Pinterest is one of the easiest platforms for this. He emphasizes quantity, stating he posts around 150 AI pins daily to manipulate Pinterest’s algorithm.
His process involves finding popular existing content, like a Christmas-themed post from a blog called The Mummy Front. He then uses an AI tool, Content Goblin, to quickly generate a similar listicle, complete with AI images.
This AI-generated content is then published on a fake blogging site he runs, such as “Bonsai Mary.” The site features an AI-generated author photo of “Mary Smith” and claims expertise in plants, recipes, and interior decorating.
Investigations revealed that “Bonsai Mary” was originally a real blog founded in the late 1990s by Mary C. Miller, an American bonsai artist. The fake persona of Mary Smith only appeared in late 2023.
Cunningham uses ChatGPT to create Pinterest-optimized descriptions for his AI images and then mass-uploads them. While the Bonsai Mary Pinterest profile mentions creating AI pins, individual pins and blog posts often lack such disclosures.
In an instructional video, Cunningham explained he uses AI images of fake people as profile pictures for Facebook pages because “people feel inclined to interact when they see another person,” believing it’s an individual rather than a page.
It’s unclear how much of Cunningham’s income stems directly from this AI content versus selling courses teaching these tactics. He markets an “AI Pinterest Masterclass” and runs private paid groups, but did not respond to Futurism’s inquiries about his revenue sources or the ethics of his strategies.
Both Pinterest and Facebook declined to comment on the record but indicated they are developing systems to better detect and label AI content.
Cunningham acknowledged the controversy around AI content on Pinterest, attributing it to money. He demonstrated how quickly AI tools can create content, suggesting this ease of creation is what angers “old school” creators who previously faced higher barriers to entry.
“Creators used to get tons of traffic and then people like me started talking about AI on Pinterest… that’s why they’re so angry, there’s money here and we disrupted the flow of money,” he said in a YouTube video.
While social media algorithms have often favored quantity, the scale of AI-generated “slop” presents new challenges. It undermines genuine creators and diminishes the value users receive, as the exchange often involves fake content leading to more fake content, primarily benefiting the “slop” producers.
As blogger Rachel Farnsworth put it, “It’s devastating to us bloggers… It’s just a bunch of fraud.”
