SKYND: Bianca Devins

The singer Skynd's vocals may shine in this music video for her track "Bianca Devins", delivering a pretty haunting performance, but the video stumbles with some lackluster AI effects that unintentionally dehumanizes its subject. The contrast with the more humanized portrayal of Shanann Watts in the "Chris Watts" music video, that was created by the same director P. R. Brown, is particularly notable. Even Skynd's choice of some corny anime-inspired makeup detracts from the seriousness of the content, making her appearance come off as silly than impactful. Moreover, the Swiss actress Sarah Baumgartner, who did a good job portraying a school shooting survivor in a previous SKYND video titled "Columbine", seems underutilized in this one, marking a missed opportunity to showcase her talents more effectively. I even showed a close friend of mine who is a manga geek this video and asked her if she if the effects really looked that bad. She told me that she bursted out laughing while watching this video.

So one might say that, despite good intentions, the band's attempt at translating the case of Bianca Devins into a song, as well as into a music video, ended up getting lost in translation.

SKYND's Bianca Devins is a dark attempt at turning a tragic true crime case into a haunting artistic statement. Unfortunately, the final product looks less like a somber meditation on internet culture and more like what happens when you let an AI with a broken anime filter direct the visuals. Somewhere along the way, the idea of paying homage to Bianca turned into portraying her as a creepy-looking cartoon character.

The Premise (I think): The video aims to retell the tragic story of Bianca Devins, a young woman whose life was senselessly cut short in 2019, with a focus on online obsession, exploitation and toxic internet culture. This sounds like heavy and poignant material... that is until you hit play and are greeted by a bizarre mix of spooky vocals, glitchy anime-inspired visuals, and enough neon to light up Times Square. Instead of creating empathy or provoking thought, it leaves you wondering, "Why does everyone look like a haunted Pokémon trainer?"

The AI-Generated Anime Filter of Doom: Here's where things go completely off the rails: the video's heavily use of an AI-generated anime filter.

It seems the AI in charge was either having a meltdown or actively rebelling against the creative direction. Bianca and SKYND are transformed into warped, cartoonish versions of themselves, complete with unnatural expressions and jittery animations. Bianca's portrayal is the worst, instead of evoking her real-life charm the AI turns her into a grotesque, uncanny caricature-like something you'd find in a cursed bootleg anime. The faces glitch, the proportions are off, and at times it feels like the filter couldn't decide if it was illustrating a somber tragedy or a lost episode of Boku No Pico.

Why it's (unintentionally) hilarious: Every frame of the video screams "unfinished AI experiment." It's like watching an art student rush their final project in MS Paint but with more neon.

Turning a real person into a surreal anime character might have sounded artsy in theory, but in practice it's like a fever dream gone wrong. Bianca's uncanny cartoon portrayal ends up being distracting at best and disrespectful at worst. The whole video takes itself so seriously with the brooding music, ominous visuals, so the glaring flaws become unintentionally comedic. It's hard to ponder the dangers of online obsession when you're staring at a glitchy cartoon face that looks like it's about to ask you to insert a coin.

My final thoughts: SKYND's Bianca Devins music video is a case study in how good intentions can go hilariously awry. The AI-generated anime filter, which turns a tragic real-life figure into an unsettling cartoon character, steals the show for all the wrong reasons. While the video tries to be a chilling commentary on internet culture, it ends up as an unintentional parody of itself. Watch it if you want to see what happens when AI meets melodrama but maybe don't expect it to change your worldview.

Well, well, well, if it isn't SKYND's "Bianca Devins" music video, a prime example of how not to pay tribute to a murder victim. I mean, seriously, who gave the green light to this dumpster fire? With the finesse of a blindfolded chimp, they decided to slap on some pathetic AI filter, turning poor Bianca into a cartoonish monstrosity straight out of a B-grade horror flick. And let's not forget those teeth - Bianca ends up looking like she's auditioning for the role of the next Jaws villain rather than a 17-year-old girl.

So congrats, SKYND, you've managed to turn a heartbreaking story into a sideshow of unintentional comedy. Move over, stand-up comedians, because bad AI animation are the new kings of comedy. Forget about scares or tears; this music video is more likely to induce fits of laughter. Heck, even the trolls from 4chan would've had a field day with this one when the Bianca Devins case was still very fresh. So keep up the good work, SKYND - hope to see you turn a tragic story into a sideshow of cringe-inducing proportions again in the future! XD.

The idea of creating a music video using AI and combine it with true crime is not only stupid, but it's also disgustingly insulting considering the fact that the band clearly did not ask poor Kimberly Devins for permission before creating this music video.

The singer has even said a couple of times that she "is trying to be respectful towards the victims" and yet she has not even mention a word about how Kimberly is campaigning to hold social media platforms accountable with "Bianca's Law" and even tried to encourage her followers to go and support the Devins family.

Also, AI art doesn't allow Copyright so legally anyone can take multiple screenshots from this video and say they own the images. Though I doubt anyone except some AI-bros would claim ownership of this trash...

Dear SKYND and Skyndicates, AI art and true crime should be kept as separate as possible.

I'll try not to repeat the words as many people who have criticised this music video and pointed out how it is so ironic that a "true crime band" like SKYND said yes to have AI be featured in their latest music video. But boy, where to start?

It is mind-boggling how SKYND, a band I adored for so many years, pretty much refused to do even the tiniest bit of research of the controversy surrounding AI art and why so many artists hate it so much. And NO, just because other bands like Disturbed, Linkin Park or Die Antwoord also made videos using AI doesn't make the whole thing becomes less unethical. Several of the most high-profile AI art generators out there work by taking the prompts they're fed and gathering related images, before putting out a result based on those images. Many artists are upset by these systems bordering on plagiarism, as they're being used to essentially copy an artist's style with no credit or source give (watch "Why Artists are Fed Up with AI Art" by SamDoesArts and "Artificial Intelligence" by John Oliver).

TL;DR Music video is bad because it's using actual work from actual artists without payment or credit to create those AI images and the tragic story involving a 17-year-old victim of a horrorfying crime is thrown into this mix. The AI images that are supposed to look like Bianca Devins in the video barely looks anything like her, that's how bad it is.

I sincerely hope Bianca Devin's family and friends will never see this video.

1/10 stars from me.