AI-generated British schoolgirl becomes far-right social media meme | Far right
In certain corners of the internet, niche news feeds and algorithms, an AI-generated British schoolgirl has emerged as a cultural phenomenon.
Her name is Amelia, and she is a purple-haired “goth girl” who proudly carries a mini-union flag wherever she goes and seems to be into racism.
If you’re not familiar with Amelia, you’ll likely soon come across a viral meme or other viral meme inspired by her on Facebook or X, where her fame is growing.
Amelia’s videos often feature her walking through London or the House of Commons, declaring her love for Britain and warning of the dangers of “militant Muslims” or “third world immigrants”. In one clip, a bearded man in Islamic garb yells at him for eating a pork sausage.
The message is one well-rehearsed on far-right social media, but it’s Amelia’s AI invention that makes her infinitely adaptable, creating a viral internet trend that anyone with access to a mainstream chatbot can join. X users turned to the Grok AI tool to create so many Amelia memes; now Amelia is breaking out of niche online silos.
The character’s origins are ironic, to say the least. An early version of Amelia started life in a counter-extremism video game funded by the UK Home Office, created to deter young people aged 13-18 from falling prey to far-right extremism in Yorkshire.
Paths: Surfing the Internet and Extremism It is a simple multiple choice format game with basic animation. The actors go on a journey as characters in a university. They are invited to make decisions in scenarios such as whether to download potentially extremist content or join the character Amelia at a rally organized by a “small political group” protesting changes in society and the “erosion of British values”.
Some choices result in referrals under the British government’s Counter-Terrorism Prevention programme.
But this is the subversion of the character of Amelia that exploded on social media channels in a way that surprised even the creators of the original game.
Among the plethora of increasingly sophisticated AI-generated iterations are a Manga-style Amelia, a Wallace and Gromit version, and AI-generated “real-life” encounters between herself and Father Ted or Harry Potter characters, accompanied by racist language and far-right messaging.
Analysis provided to the Guardian by Logically, a UK company that tracks disinformation, showed that an anonymous account known for expertly spreading far-right messages started the Amelia meme on January 9 in a post on X that has since been viewed 1.4 million times.
Volume for “Ameliaposting” increased from an average of 500 a day when that account first introduced it to the world, to roughly 10,000 as of Jan. 15, when it reached an international audience. It reached 11,137 posts on X alone on Wednesday.
In one of the most surreal twists, an Amelia cryptocurrency has emerged as social media users sought to capitalize on the meme’s rising profile. On Wednesday, Elon Musk retweeted an X account promoting the Amelia cryptocurrency token.
“What we’re seeing is hate being turned into money,” said Matteo Bergamini, founder and CEO of Shout Out UK, the political and media literacy education company that created the original game.
“We’ve seen Telegram groups all messaging in Chinese about meme money and talking about how to artificially inflate its value, so a lot of money is being made.”
The company itself has also been the target of numerous hate mails, including death threats, which have now been reported to police.
Bergamini notes that the original initiative was never intended as a stand-alone game. Instead, it was intended for use in classrooms along with a range of teaching resources; It is a fact that he says news and comments are ignored.
“Unfortunately, there is a lot of misrepresentation,” he said. “The game does not state, for example, that questioning mass immigration is inherently wrong.”
Others suggested that the initiative backfired, particularly by portraying a “cute goth girl” as a negative character, who inadvertently became a focus of admiration. But Bergamini said the game, which used feedback from focus groups with young people prior to production, continues to be used and feedback from schools and others has been positive.
However, he was taken aback by the speed and sophistication with which Amelia’s allegedly subversive memes were created on the internet.
“While this has given us some pause on security, it has also highlighted the real risks inherent in this emerging AI technology when it comes to democracy, disinformation and other areas,” he said.
Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), said: “We have seen a remarkable spread and proliferation of the meme across the far right and beyond, but what is also noteworthy is how international it has now become.
“In a way, it gets to the heart of what we might call the ‘dissident’ far-right – individuals who position themselves outside the mainstream political scene, whether they’re ‘trash posters’ who are just looking to provoke or those who are into two memes. An entire ecosystem has embraced it. Clearly, sexualized imagery is also key to this. The target audience is almost entirely young men.”
