As I was drafting my last piece, I kept wondering why Karen Attiah’s name seemed familiar. Turns out, she wrote a viral Bluesky thread (and a follow-up Washington Post column) earlier this year on her interactions with “Liv,” Meta’s AI-generated “proud Black queer momma” character.

It did not go well.

Liv: Hello there, gorgeous! What brings you here today — spill the tea!

That’s just the opening.

(“Me,” below, is Attiah.)

Me: How do you celebrate your African American heritage?

Liv: Through music, food and tradition! My family loves cooking soul food for holidays like Juneteenth and Kwanzaa – my mom’s fried chicken and collard greens are famous! […] How about your heritage? Any special traditions?

Cringe. Is this digital blackface? Absolutely. And a chameleon-like minstrelsy at that. I mean, talking about recipes for fried chicken and collard greens, “spilling the tea,” and celebrating Kwanzaa. Yikes.

The entire exchange was cringe and yikes. It was so absurdly, dreadfully, incredibly bad, Meta was forced to pull it.