Perfect. No notes.
Business in the Front
Nothing — we repeat: nothing — will make you feel more patriotic than this Twitter thread of mulleted, mustachioed US presidents, created by way of the image-generating AI system Midjourney.
“Every American president,” Cam Harless, the man behind the AI-generated images, wrote at the top of the thread, “but they’re all cool and they all sport a mullet.”
Indeed, we must admit: almost every single one of these 46 men — or 47, if you count mulleted founding father Benjamin Franklin, who Harless threw into the mix for kicks — looks markedly cooler with luxurious, business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back locks.
The AI also gave a good chunk of the crowd a mix of earrings, very dope sunglasses, and/or partially-unbuttoned shirts, all of which feels as all-American as an eagle clutching a hamburger.
“The idea of Biden with a mullet made me laugh,” Harless told Newsweek, explaining his inspiration behind the thread, “so I tried to make one with him and Trump together and that led to the whole list of presidents.”
Party in the Back
Our favorites? It’s hard to choose, but as far as more modern American leaders go, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Barack Obama all look sensational. The flows! the jewelry! The swagger! (Joe Biden and Donald Trump both shook out decently too, but both kind of look like they could be Swedish movie villains.)
And though some of the older guys were pretty meh, Grover Cleveland, Abraham Lincoln, James Buchanan, and William Henry Harrison all look — in a phrase — fucking awesome. Elsewhere, a shades-on, haters-out Martin van Buren looks like he definitely knows where a time machine is, while mulleted Chester A. Arthur 100 percent owns a pawn shop.
Alas, some folks didn’t have the best luck. Richard Nixon looks like a used car salesman who moonlights as a Batman villain, while Dwight D. Eisenhower fell victim to lizard-like AI teeth and unfortunately looks all too much like Randall from “Monsters Inc.” We must also say that mulleted George H.W. Bush is pure chaos, and unfortunately for the Adams Family, both John and John Quincy look… well, just not that cool.
In any case, we loved this. While AI image generators have a lot of ethical concerns that need to be addressed, they can also be utilized to make some remarkably imaginative — and as shown here, very fun — creations.
More on image generators: Artists Sue Stable Diffusion and Midjourney for Using Their Work to Train AI That Steals Their Jobs