Author and illustrator Loryn Brantz never thought she would be famous cartoon the character he created almost a decade ago will one day be the subject of property a conflict involving BuzzFeed, AmazonVideo streaming service, and production artificial intelligence. But that is the reality he finds himself in today.
“Nothing that was said in good faith by management and executives was followed through on,” Brantz says of BuzzFeed, his former employer.
This week, Brantz shared a post Instagram post calling out the dominant media brand. He was responding to news that the company had licensed its Cuppy consulting character to Prime Video, which plans to release a series called Cupcakes & Friendsdeveloped with AI tools. It is one of three new animated series greenlit through the GenAI Creators Fund, a joint initiative of Amazon Web Services and Amazon MGM Studios.
“This is an attack on artists everywhere,” Brantz declared in his post.
The headlines announcing the project were a dream come true—and a scenario that everyone working in the creative field has begun to fear in the age of AI. Digital media that has been constantly evolving over the years would seem to be a good base for such deals. (Media mogul Byron Allen later became chairman and CEO of BuzzFeed buy more shares in the brand for $120 million, outlining plans to use AI to transform BuzzFeed into a YouTube competitor.)
Brantz, is currently the executive creative director of YouTube the teacher Miss Rachelslammed BuzzFeed and Amazon for their plans to turn his character into a “soulless AI puppet” on Instagram. “I urge you to boycott BuzzFeed and any animation made by or near AI,” he wrote.
Brantz began writing and illustrating for BuzzFeed in 2014, at the height of the outlet’s influence. He was also working on his own books and posting original content on his social media channels. In 2017, he went viral with a cartoon featuring a human and innocent “Good Advice Cake” whose character changes violently as he suggests that “when life gets you down, you have to grab it by the balls – and make life your bunny.”
“The character is 100 percent based on my own personality as someone who is very optimistic and almost positive,” Brantz tells WIRED. “It was my way of shouting out encouraging advice in a fun and humorous way.”
Originally, Brantz came up with Cuppy for the children’s book field. After the Disney publishing brand adopted the idea, he brought it to his webcomics. And when it hit social media, BuzzFeed saw an opportunity.
“From there, there was a lot of back and forth about how to move forward to bring it to life as a website at BuzzFeed,” Brantz recalls. Finally, BuzzFeed released eight episodes of a Good advice Cupcake webseries, which ran in the summer of 2019. Topics included “Advice for Your Dirty Life” and “Getting Out Advice.”
“When all this happened, AI didn’t exist,” Brantz says, noting that he couldn’t sign a contract allowing BuzzFeed to seek out more Cuppy material created by this ubiquitous technology. “In the end, I believed them, albeit foolishly, when they said they had no intention of continuing Cuppy without my involvement if I ever left, and that they would respect my creative wishes for it,” he says. Brantz left BuzzFeed for Miss Rachel in 2023 and continues to license its party from the company for the contents, including a Good advice Cupcake page on Instagram that has more than 2 million followers.
