A TikTok influencer is less than impressed by what she saw on a local art festival flier. According to her allegations, the 2026 Downtown Edmond Arts Festival in Oklahoma was very clearly using AI in their flier announcement. With so many artists willing to make real art, why was that ever an option?
TikTok content creator Lyssdemeanor, Alyssa, asks: “Ironic that the logo for an art festival is AI, right?” She shows a picture of the flier, arguing that it’s very obvious the organization used AI to generate the poster. Alyssa says her immediate reaction was, “Why didn’t you ask one of those vendors to design something for you? You have over 160 people there.”
Alyssa was so disturbed by the alleged AI usage in an art-related poster she sent them an email about their event. She suggested to the organization that AI usage is “insulting” to the artists who are attending the event. She said they could have done better by “asking someone to make that logo” or “using a free Canva template.” Alyssa goes on to call the event organizers “tasteless” and tells them they appear “lazy” for using AI.
Surprisingly, the festival director sent Alyssa an email in return, stating, “I did invite every artist to create a blue hippo design for this year” and said “only about 10” of them responded. In the end, the director says “This was not an instant AI creation. It was done by an accomplished graphic artist who personally designs all of her work. I watched her build it myself. There are over a hundred layers in her graphics program and it took her many hours to create.”
Alyssa took that response and investigated the ‘artist’ who did the work. She discovered that the creation was made by a T-shirt vendor who is attending the festival. She uncovers what appears to be repeated use of AI in many of the vendor’s products. Alyssa believes the vendor duped the director and said she spent hundreds of hours on something she used AI to generate in “15 minutes.”
Alyssa didn’t stop at her own assessment of the alleged AI art, but took it to other skilled professionals on sites such as Reddit. She then took their responses and compiled a second email for the committee, arguing that they were lied to about the poster. Alyssa has not received an email back since.
How People Reacted to Alyssa’s Online Sleuthing
Given the response on Alyssa’s TikTok video, people aren’t at all happy with the Downtown Edmond Arts Festival. Even people unfamiliar with the event gave their two cents, agreeing with Lyss’s take on the flier. More importantly, many find the use of AI art to be an affront to the art community.
Another TikTok user was baffled something like this would even get passed an art committee, “The fact that the committee of the festival is so convinced it’s real is wildly concerning?” A similar comment was asked, with one viewer suggesting the organizers were “older” and more susceptible to being “duped” by AI imagery.
One TikTok user took Alyssa’s comments on the use of Photoshop further, arguing artists don’t normally make art in Photoshop. “You’d use Illustrator or something similar… she may have used AI to create the components and then layered them in Photoshop,” they wrote. “She may actually believe this means she ‘created’ the image.”
Among the top comments, one TikTok viewer flat out refuses to give businesses to organizations that use AI. They shared an image with text stating: “If the flyer is AI, I’m not going.”
