For a brief moment, everything was Ghibli

FOR A BRIEF moment, everything was Ghibli.

- Bloomberg

We all know social media algorithms elevate material that you'll engage with — typically content designed to enrage. But one instant last week felt like a reprieve when, following the release of a new OpenAI image-creation tool with few guardrails, suddenly everything was decked out in the telltale style of the Japanese animation studio.

Why it went viral is anyone's guess. It seems to have begun with an innocuous tweet noting the brownie points attainable by converting family photos into Ghibli style. GPT-40 can of course do other styles; it could just as easily have been shots redone in the style of One Piece, the Muppets, or Rick and Morty.

But the people demanded Ghibli and, within hours, everything that could be Ghiblified had been. Perhaps the reason it took off is the sheer cosyness of its world, particularly amid a frantic global environment where old friendships are falling apart, and a rapidly changing economy with AI at its fore. The Ghibli images add a layer on reality that renders the mundane magical. In most of the studio's movies, even the villains are understandable, and who among us has not wanted to ride the Catbus from My Neighbor Totoro, or seek comfort in the onigiri rice balls from Spirited Away.