Listen, I’ve seen some weird shit through the bottom of a whiskey glass, but Coca-Cola’s new AI-generated Christmas ad makes my worst bourbon-soaked nightmares look like Disney productions. And trust me, I know something about nightmares - I wake up to them every afternoon.
Four AI studios burned through enough electricity to power my favorite dive bar for a decade, just to create 15 seconds of digital vomit that looks like Christmas threw up on itself. The whole thing’s got fewer real frames than I’ve had sober days this month.
Here’s the funny part - they needed three different AI models (Leonardo, Luma, and Runway) plus some new hotshot called Kling just to make something that wouldn’t send children screaming from the room. That’s like needing four bartenders to pour one watered-down beer.
The best part? They spent “hundreds” of attempts trying to render one goddamn squirrel. Hundreds. Let that sink in while I pour another drink. In the time it took them to make one digital rodent, a real squirrel could have graduated college, started a family, and developed a drinking problem.
You want to know how bad it is? They couldn’t even show Santa’s face. The jolly old bastard’s been reduced to one rubber hand clutching a Coke bottle like it’s the last drink at closing time. And the people? They look like they’ve been stretched through a funhouse mirror after a three-day bender. We’re talking giants who couldn’t fit through their own truck doors.
The wheels on their magical Christmas trucks don’t even spin - they just slide across the ground like they’re being pushed by invisible elves on a frozen lake. The buildings in the background look like they were designed by an architect who got into the cooking sherry. And the Christmas lights? They’ve got patterns that would make a geometry teacher reach for the bottle.
But here’s what really chaps my ass: they’re trying to recreate their iconic 1995 Christmas ad. You remember that one - actual humans made it, with actual cameras, and it actually worked. It’s like trying to replace your grandmother’s secret cookie recipe with something a computer spat out after scanning a million Pinterest fails.
The whole thing moves faster than me running from my bar tab. Fifteen seconds, ten cuts, never showing the same thing twice because God forbid you get a good look at these digital abominations. They’re hiding the mistakes like I hide empty bottles before my mother visits.
And the kicker? This technological triumph of human innovation uses more water than California’s wine country during harvest season. The power consumption would make Bitcoin miners blush. All this waste just to produce something that looks like it was made by a committee of robots who learned about Christmas by watching static on an old TV.
Some suit at Coca-Cola probably got a fat bonus for this “cost-saving innovation.” Meanwhile, actual artists are getting pink slips faster than I get cut off at last call. As Alex Hirsch said, Coke’s staying red from “the blood of out-of-work artists.” Dark, but he’s not wrong.
You know what’s really rich? These AI programs can’t even generate coherent text, so humans had to go in and fix all the Coca-Cola logos. That’s like hiring a chef who can’t boil water but claims they can make a perfect soufflé.
The whole thing reminds me of those non-alcoholic spirits they keep trying to push at fancy bars - it looks like the real thing, costs more to make, and leaves everyone wondering why they bothered in the first place.
I need another drink.
Until next time, this is Henry Chinaski, wondering if AI can generate a decent hangover cure. Because after watching this ad, I’m gonna need one.
P.S. If anyone from Coca-Cola is reading this, I accept payment in bourbon. The good stuff, not the AI-generated kind.