*______*
Pareidolia and the art of bullshitting
In the title of this post did you see an exasperated face of a man who has given up on life and is just trying to get through it because he feels ancient, washed up, his art isn’t as fresh it once was, no one slides in his dms anymore… and he’s tired…
Yeah I saw me in it too, funny how that happens!
(I slide in your DMs all the time, with cat videos - Heather wife, editor and International Cat Lady)
There are several time-lapse videos of me drawing specifically for this article. I do hope you enjoy watching them as much as I enjoyed drawing them.
If Cosette1 from Les Miserables2 was made from a tree that had seen better days, then this would be an exact replica of her.
Pair Of Doilies?
Pareidolia. It’s a funny sounding name that has nothing to do with 2 pretty napkins at a southern belle sorority reunion (a “pair of Doilies uh?” Get it!? Pair!? Doilies? OMG I’m funnier than a hat!). Nope, Pareidolia is when you, the viewer3, find a specific and often meaningful image in a random visual pattern (like when you see the baby Jesus in a Cheeto 4, then that Cheeto is put on display at the MoMA while your work gets ripped off and sold at the Dollar General, and that Christ Cheeto sells for a gabillion-million dollars, then the tech bro who bought it eats it to become one with Cheesus and all of us are mad because he spent 6 million fucking dollars on a goddamned banana with fucking duct tape on it, and ate it!!!!5 -ahem… I …may have gotten off track…or not, fuck that banana eatin’ techbro bastard wasting 6m on a nanner, I hope you slipped on the peel).
I use Pareidolia all the time in my art. Click the video to see the process. Also, because of licensing issues I was unable to convince Nickelback’s6 legal team to let me use their song “Look at this photograph on Joey’s head” as the theme music to all these videos. So best you just hum it along as you watch these videos.
See shit where shit ain’t
Seeing faces in cars
Ever look at a cybertruck7 built by Elmo and say “I can’t believe he’s going to run the country now, like all this talk about illegal aliens invading the USA and we literally are going to have the worst one in office.”
However, if it’s not a cyber-vehicle designed by the equivalent of a Born-again-incel titty baby who puts X on everything, you might say “Wow that car looks angry” and that’s because the bumper is shaped like a gay rainbow 🌈 making an upside down happy face and the headlights look like eyes. That’s where you fill in the rest with an anthropomorphic vehicle narrative… which is Michael Knight and KITT being bros…not Elmo and his ai Grok or whatever the hell he’s calling it.
Obviously, the image above is not a car. “Why?” You may be asking yourself. Well it’s simple, really. I HATE DRAWING CARS WITH A SCREAMING PASSION AND WILL AVOID DRAWING THEM AT ALL COSTS SO YOU’RE GETTING A WOODEN TERMITE PRINCESS INSTEAD.
Images in clouds
Ever looked up in a cloud, seen your ex, and thought “wow you’ve gained weight…but I guess since you’re just a cloud it’s probably just water weight… but still, damn…you really let yourself go.” Like the cybertruck, we see patterns and our brain constructs imagery and narratives of those patterns in the cloud. Depending on what’s on your mind that day… maybe that’ll be what you see in the cloud? Like for me it’s Zeus hurling lightning bolts at me, for Heather it’s usually cats doing the ol’ razzle-dazzle.8
That’s right, my ex is Zeus. Lame joke, I know… sometimes humor is hard to write.
The Man in the moon
If you’re one of those snowflakes that says “Well why can’t it be a woman in the moon! The patriarchy strikes again” My dear female who needs to smile more, let me just moonsplain it to you how this works:
It’s a man up there because he refused to ask for directions, and now he’s stuck like those poor folks up on the ISS.
Obvi this is not a man in the moon, it’s not even a man, nor is it a red bell pepper! It’s one of the many faces that appear to me while I am asleep and having constant nightmares (seriously, I have nightmares like all the time).
Divination practices
You know those bullshitters… I mean, grifters… I mean fortune tellers and soothsayers…I mean mega-church pastors. They use scrying, the practice of gazing into a crystal ball or packed sanctuary (not to be confused with crying which is what your wallet is doing as they drain it, nor to be confused with “scromiting”9 which is a whole other story), while pretending to “receive visions” about you and how you’re going to have so much prosperity in 2025 now that Elmo is going to run the country.
There’s also Tasseography where a grifter will look at some tea leaves they bought “BOGO”10 at Kroger and “tell your future” (and all that prosperity you’re going to get with Trumpty Dumpty being in office) from looking at some overpriced tea flakes in hot brown water.
And then there’s the good ol’ fashioned mega-church pastor who insists that if you give 10% of your hard-earned paycheck to a man who has 10 Aston Martins and 3 mansions11, you’ll get a bunch of money. Poor Aunt Peepaw12, who doesn’t have a pot to piss in, promptly puts her pennies in the preacher’s pocket each prayerful Sunday. She may have needed that extra 10% of her check from her 3rd job to cover her Medicare premiums, but… you know, Joel Olsteen gotta have that new Private Jet to fly to Epstein Island and uh…spread the gospel for all the young women there.
Before you think “well, who falls for this shit!?” Um, my friend, in addition to Poor Aunt Peepaw, there’s Nancy Reagan, Adolf Hitler, FDR, Abe Lincoln, JP Morgan, Princess Diana, Eliz 1 of England, Cher, Brad Pitt, and the powerful French queen Catherine de Medici, who have all consulted fortune tellers for advice.
Like, fortune tellers were the OG misinformation spreaders way before social media.
Yes, I too saw Pennywise the Clown in the bacon, that’s why I drew Count Dracula to be counterculture and edgy. So edgy…
Life on Mars
Ground Control to Major Tom…
Some homies at NASA sent up the Viking 113 spaceship to get some pics of Mars for their IG account… you know so they could go viral and all (the things people will do first internet clout these days).
One image sent back from Mars resembled a human face14 that looked like a mix between Willem Dafoe and Björk. It caused widespread panic for peeps who were now convinced that there are aliens on Mars.
People were worried that these aliens were going to enter our atmosphere, and steal our women, and more importantly our crypto…oh and our jobs, but mainly our crypto. However fortunately for mankind, Elmo 15 built a space wall in the shape of an X and kept the aliens at bay. Yay Elmo… weeee… eeee…. eeeeeeeee…..
As this (misinformation hysteria) filled the land, some people called “scientists” 16 put out a “conspiracy theory” 17 that the alien face was nothing more than a “rock formation” 18 and they intimated that we had all been duped by the Pareidolia effect……or so they say.
You can clearly see here in Iggy Pop19’s alien stomach wrinkles, the face of David Bowie dressed as a worried skier getting pelted in the face with a snowball.
Eye Spy
Did you know humans have some of the best facial recognition abilities ever? I can look over at Heather and just by reading the patterns in her face, I know she’s angry. 20
“I’m fine.”
- Heather, Editor, Wife, Mad
I don’t know what she’s angry about 21, but she’s angry 22. I know this because she gives me a look that says, “for the 1,000th time, put the goddamned dirty dishes in the dishwasher when you’re done with them instead of leaving them in the sink!”23 But instead of saying that, she pauses for 20 seconds and then she only says… “I’m fine.” 24 (For those uninitiated into the ways of the womenfolk, a woman saying, “I’m fine”, is code for “I’m going to go Lorena Bobbit 25 on you during your sleep, you little bitch” 🔪🍆)26
This one was my all-time favorite to draw, I love how it turned out (which is rare because I usually hate all my artwork27. I’m not looking for sympathy, I’m just really hard on myself). You should tell me how great this piece is in the comments by clicking this here button.
That’s the level of sophisticated facial recognition that we have, and it’s found down in our temporal lobe and known as the Fusiform Face Area (FFA) which is different than FFS28 which means something else that is an often-used part of my vocabulary. Some “scientist”29 got a lot of grant money and made up a word called “magnetoencephalography”30 to show that the FFA can detect a face 165 milliseconds after viewing a someone’s mug. That’s like making a short “hmm”31 sound for a milli-fraction of a second…that’s what 165 milliseconds feels like. Basically, FFA is FAFB32
Recognizing faces was crucial to human survival so they could identify others as friends, foes, predators, Taylor Swift or Jehovah Witnesses knocking at your door 33 .
This honestly reminded me of a character from Star Wars so I drew it as such. That’s right Kathleen Kennedy34, you seeing this masterpiece here? Kathy, HIRE ME ON STAR WARS AND I’LL MAKE ALL UR FINANCIAL DREAMS COME TRUE.
Also, our ability to recognize faces helps us in social situations, improving communication or helping to interpret what your wife is thinking when she says, “I’m fine.” 35
And for artists like me, Pareidolia is great because that’s what I do- I look for patterns in shapes to create an appealing face or mood 36. In fact I use pareidolia in almost every piece of my work one way or another.
Cloudy With A Chance
So the next time you’re with your bros, cloud watching and someone says “Hey that one cloud looks like your ex, mind if I go hit that?37”, just know that’s your brain putting patterns together to construct a narrative that’s not there. And honestly, that’s ok, narratives are great, I love a good story. However, when folks push those magical stories or beliefs on others as fact is when you can fuck38 the hell right off of my lawn 🖕🖕🖕🖕! (Yeah you heard me, I’m in my 50s39 now, I have earned the right to say “Get off my lawn!”)
Post Script: Heather asked me to draw what I see in an electrical outlet 😮; clearly it’s Aunt Bea from Mayberry40. And this is your reminder to “BEA” careful around electrical outlets! - Heather, Wife, Editor, Risk Averse around electrical outlets
Citations
Pareidolia Definition: Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon where people perceive meaningful images in random patterns, such as seeing faces in clouds or objects.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/seeing-things/Face on Mars (Viking 1 Image): The "Face on Mars" image taken by NASA’s Viking 1 in 1976 shows a rock formation in the Cydonia region. Subsequent higher-resolution images revealed it to be a natural mesa, not an alien structure.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_60.htmlNancy Reagan’s Astrologer: Nancy Reagan famously consulted astrologer Joan Quigley following the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, but this was not for national policy decisions.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/04/us/white-house-predicts-no-upheaval-over-astrologer.htmlMagnetoencephalography (MEG): MEG is a neuroimaging technique that measures magnetic fields produced by neuronal activity, particularly in the temporal lobe, including the Fusiform Face Area.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11790817Fusiform Face Area (FFA): The Fusiform Face Area is a part of the brain’s temporal lobe specialized in facial recognition. It activates within 165 milliseconds of seeing a face.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10413577Importance of Face Recognition for Survival: Facial recognition evolved to help humans identify allies, threats, and other social cues, crucial for survival.
http://www.nature.com/articles/nn1536Cultural and Historical Context of Scrying and Tasseography: Practices like scrying and tasseography have roots in ancient cultures and are still practiced for spiritual or entertainment purposes. However, there’s no empirical evidence supporting their accuracy.
http://www.britannica.com/topic/scryingWhy Humans See Faces in Objects: Pareidolia occurs because the brain's facial recognition network is so sensitive that it detects faces even where none exist, such as in cars or clouds.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201402/why-you-see-faces-in-objectsSeeing Faces in Cars: The perception of cars as having faces stems from humans' tendency to attribute emotions or intent to inanimate objects based on facial features.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103114002178Cloud Images and Subjectivity: The images people see in clouds often reflect their current thoughts or emotional states, influenced by pareidolia and projection.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/07-08/seeing-thingsMan in the Moon Mythology: The "Man in the Moon" phenomenon is a classic example of pareidolia, with cultural interpretations varying widely across societies.
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Man-in-the-MoonTemporal Lobe’s Role in Face Recognition: Studies show that the temporal lobe, specifically the Fusiform Face Area, is essential for recognizing faces and social cues.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006899397003657Tasseography History: Tasseography, or tea leaf reading, dates back centuries and has cultural significance, though it lacks scientific evidence.
http://www.culturaldiversitytea.com/historyAlien Conspiracy Theories and Pareidolia: The human tendency to create meaning from ambiguous visuals has fueled alien conspiracy theories, like the "Face on Mars."
http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/articles/the-truth-about-the-face-on-marsPattern Recognition and Creativity: Artists often rely on pareidolia to find inspiration in random patterns and turn them into recognizable forms.
http://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-how-pareidolia-inspires-artistsReligious and Spiritual Pareidolia: Pareidolia explains many reported sightings of religious figures in everyday objects, such as Jesus on toast or the Virgin Mary in tree bark.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124608742Brain's Bias Toward Faces: The human brain is uniquely biased to detect and interpret faces, even in non-human objects, due to evolutionary pressures.
http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(16)30091-9Why Pareidolia Feels Meaningful: When people see faces or images in objects, they often assign emotional or spiritual significance due to cognitive biases and the brain’s storytelling nature.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18633777Face Detection in 165ms: Research confirms that humans can detect faces within 165 milliseconds of exposure, showcasing the brain’s efficiency in processing facial features.
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/21/16/6447Religious Sightings and Mass Media: Public fascination with pareidolia is often amplified by media coverage, turning mundane images into viral phenomena.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201502/the-face-in-the-toastAstrology in Modern History: While astrology lacks scientific credibility, its use in high-profile cases, such as by Nancy Reagan, has sparked public debates about pseudoscience in governance.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-astrology-era-in-the-white-house-11688792Human Bias Toward Narrative Creation: Pareidolia is linked to the brain’s need to create narratives, which can lead to overinterpreting random patterns.
http://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01467/fullCydonia Region on Mars: The rock formation resembling a face in Mars’ Cydonia region was explained as a result of lighting and shadows combined with pareidolia.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/fact_on_mars.cfmEmotional Interpretation of Faces: Humans’ ability to perceive emotions from faces, even in objects, plays a crucial role in social communication and survival.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698909001750Cultural Evolution of Myths: Pareidolia has contributed to the creation of myths and folklore, such as gods appearing in natural phenomena.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/23327853Impact of Pseudoscience on Society: Practices like astrology, scrying, and tasseography perpetuate misinformation, reinforcing cognitive biases rather than encouraging critical thinking.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-pseudoscience/The Evolutionary Purpose of Pareidolia: Pareidolia likely evolved as a survival mechanism, helping humans identify predators or allies in ambiguous environments.
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/30/8477How Pareidolia Affects Art: Artists often use pareidolia as a creative tool to find patterns and create meaning from random shapes.
http://www.creativebloq.com/inspiration/pareidolia-in-artSkepticism Toward Spiritual Pareidolia: Experts argue that while pareidolia is a fascinating phenomenon, its use to claim supernatural experiences should be critically examined.
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/pareidolia_seeing_faces_in_unusual_placesModern Examples of Pareidolia: Viral examples like “Jesus on toast” highlight how pareidolia continues to capture public imagination in the internet age.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/jesus-on-toast/374674
FEEP NOTES
Please don’t get this mixed up with Cassette, Cosette’s sister from the 80s
24601
That’s you!
Just regular Cheetos not like those “Hot Jalapeño with Lime” Cheetos that make you fart
The buyer of the $6.2 million banana art piece eats it
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/29/nx-s1-5210800/6-million-banana-art-piece-eaten
To calculate how many people in poverty could have three nutritious meals per day for a year with $6 million, let’s break it down based on average meal costs.
Step 1: Cost of a Nutritious Meal
The cost of a nutritious meal varies but can range from $2 to $5 depending on preparation and ingredients. A reasonable estimate for a cost-effective yet nutritious meal could be $3 per meal.
• Daily cost per person: $3 × 3 meals = $9 per day
• Annual cost per person: $9 × 365 = $3,285 per person per year
Step 2: Total People Fed
With $6 million:
Step 3: Adjusting for Lower Costs
If you use food banks, bulk purchasing, or subsidized programs to reduce the cost per meal to $2 per meal:
• Daily cost per person: $2 × 3 meals = $6 per day
• Annual cost per person: $6 × 365 = $2,190 per person per year
• People fed with $6 million:
Final Estimate:
• At $3 per meal, about 1,827 people could be fed for a year.
• At $2 per meal, about 2,740 people could be fed for a year.
Twenty seven hundred people could eat nutritiously, 3 times a day, for a year had this dickwad donated his money to charity, not flexing his crypto weenier.
Kroeger! Dawg why you blocking me, your voice is the only reason I get up in the morning. Also tell Avril I said hi and is her life still complicated?
New Jersey Cybertruck owner flips his at a $207K loss 3 months after buying
The Parsippany Troy Hills man bought it in March, representing the most anyone has ever paid for a Tesla. It was a dual-motor setup with a maximum range of 340 miles, 20-inch wheels, and 600 horsepower.
To the man’s dismay, the depreciation of the Cybertruck caught up with him by the time he decided his joyride with the Tesla was over. After just three months, the same Cybertruck was found online at a humble price of $83,000, Autoevolution shared.
That would mean a price cut of $206,999 from what he originally paid. The EV only had 6,600 miles on it, which usually helps with the reselling of EVs. Especially after Musk decided to slash the prices of the truck in August, decreasing its value.
Despite a clean CARFAX report, the accelerated depreciation caught up with the buyer quickly.
I really thought Hummer H3s were the epitome of stupid. I now believe there is no bottom, no low and no end that we will not sink to.
I married the #1 Cat Lady in the world
When you smoke up too much of the devil’s lettuce and scream/vomit at the same time. Sounds lovely
Buy One Get One
It is my experience that the pastors that beg the most for money, usually have the fanciest cars.
More on Aunt Peepaw can be found here: https://thig.substack.com/i/152050836/whos-behind-it
Hi Jason
Elon Musk is the Nickelback of Joe Rogan of people who find Carrot Top funny.
This is exactly how I pictured Martians to look like, looking tired of our bullshit of invading their planet.
The air quotes are sarcasm
Also sarcasm
I discovered Iggy Pop in 1987 in the 8th grade…and I’ve been trying to forget him since then.
Guess what? More Sarcasm
Not sarcasm
I don’t know because I cannot read minds, for I am a man.
Like if there is a microscopic crumb left in the kitchen, imma hear about it.
Also not sarcasm. Please send help, now.
If your partner is a woman, and she says “I’m fine.” You’re already dead…
FWIW, Heather and I have a lovely relationship and I only make her out to be this way in writing. I have, by far, an angel of a wife who is loving, caring and gives me so much attention and love that sometimes I didn’t know a human could do this. Love you, Heather
I am really hard on myself with my art, I honestly can’t tell you the times I’ve been in a corner, teared up, because I feel my art is shit and I’m a worthless human being. I may sound like a mighty force in these articles but seriously, I’m one sensitive motherfucker.
This woman cuts
I bet his name is “Todd”, every person that’s annoying is named “Todd”
For Fuck’s Sake how did you not know what that didn’t mean!?
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a non-invasive neuroimaging technique used to measure the magnetic fields produced by neuronal activity in the brain. These magnetic fields are generated by the electrical currents that flow during synaptic transmission and action potentials.
Hmm
FAFB - Fast as Fuck, Boy!
I have always found it odd that the same people that get mad that “The Gays” are spreading their agendas like reading stories to kids in costume, having a parade and dressing fabulously is an abomination but it’s A-Ok to knock on my door at 8am on Saturday to tell me I’m going to hell unless I read this pamphlet they are shoving at me (even when there’s a giant fucking NO SOLICITING SIGN on our front door. FFS!!!)
I am a rabid Star Wars fan, I watch everything that comes out on Star Wars and like it…but I do think Kathleen Kennedy is running the entire franchise straight into the ground. Instead of getting excited when something comes out from the Lucasverse, it feels like the long haul instead. And please, Kathy…when do we get an Ewok TV Series!?
Again, if your female partner says “I’m fine.” That’s like spotting a mountain lion in the wilderness, if you see it, it’s already too late. So if you ever hear your gal say “I’m fine”, I’d panic…like a lot.
Or I just gaze at my beautiful self in the mirror… except in the mornings, especially after a night with Wild Turkey and burying the bodies… then I just look a little tired under the eyes.
God, please don’t be that guy.
I really dropped the f bombs in this entry, eh? I guess I’m just prepping for the long next 4 years we’re going to have under Persidint [sic] Elmo [sick…🤢 🤮 ]
That’s right, I’m holding the age card over your little fetus head! Don’t you love that when people are like “oh you think YOU’RE OLD…” Like right now there is some 55 year old reading thinking “oh psh Thig, 51? Just wait until you get to 55!” (Why do we feel the need to leverage age over someone, like that makes you so much more enlightened and experienced? It’s one of the many hangups of my Generation (GenX) that post dumb memes like “Kids will never know what was like to have a cassette tape player” and what the hell? I wish I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT A BOOM BOX CASSETTE TAPE PLAYER WAS, JFC those things were an abomination that ate cassettes. Give me my free Apple Streaming Music service I get with my cell phone plan!
🤩
Haha these were all so great! I am ALWAYS seeing faces in woodgrain and flowers and marble. I should really take pictures and try to draw them