
Deep Fake Neighbour Wars: How AI can transform popular cultureITVX's Deep Fake Neighbour Wars is the breakthrough in television's use of AI. In this series, celebrities have invaded our everyday lives
by The Conversation
30-01-2023 15:10
in Entertainment
Deep Fake Neighbour Wars' deepfakes of Conor McGregor and Ariana Grande.
Image by Tiger Aspect Productions
ITVX's Deep Fake Neighbour Wars is the breakthrough in television's use of artificial intelligence that experts in the cultural use of deepfakes like myself have been waiting for.
--
In this six-part series, celebrities have apparently invaded our everyday lives. Presented as a reality TV show, we meet suburban neighbours in Catford, south London. Idris Elba (handyman/delivery driver) takes pride in the garden behind his ground-floor flat, until new upstairs tenant Kim Kardashian (bus driver) starts to exercise her right to use the shared space. They recount the story of a dispute that ultimately turns to violence.
Deepfakes of Idris Elba and Kim Kardashian in Deep Fake Neighbour Wars. Tiger Aspect Productions In a second storyline set in Southend, Greta Thunberg (single mum) has adopted the sunny coastal Essex town to escape the cold of northern Sweden, until she confronts neighbours Conor McGregor (florist) and Ariana Grande (scaffolder) - Christmas decoration fanatics with a permanent display of noisy, flashing reindeer in front of their bungalow. Cue high drama when Thunberg takes justice into her own hands.
It's a brilliant play on the mockumentary, a genre that brought us film comedy classics such as This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and Borat (2006, 2020), and TV hits like Parks and Recreation (2006-2015).
--
ALSO READ: Elon Musk's model mom: Maye hits a million Instagram followers
THE CREATIVE POTENTIAL OF DEEPFAKES Deepfakes sound suspicious just from their name, which tells us immediately that we're being deceived. Many producers now prefer the term synthetic media to avoid this connection.
The major ethical issue with deepfakes is the idea that they're trying to trick us - but this isn't a problem when they're used for obvious comedy.
--
It may look like Idris Elba is living an alternative reality in Catford, but we laugh because we know clearly that this isn't the real thing. Deepfakes can twist and rejuvenate pop culture through their playfulness, while also challenging us to consider what we accept as real.
As philosopher Adrienne De Ruiter explains, deepfake technology and deepfakes are morally suspect, but not inherently morally wrong.
Deep Fake Neighbour Wars' deepfakes of Conor McGregor and Ariana Grande. Tiger Aspect Productions This year marks a watershed moment for deepfakes. The technology is at a cultural crossroads in which the primary use in its early years - non-consensual pornography - is being overshadowed by the technology's adoption by mainstream popular culture.
Neighbour Wars follows on from other attempts to use deepfakes in television. In 2020, Channel 4's Alternative Christmas Message featured Queen Elizabeth II speaking to the nation during the pandemic.
At that time, broadcast deepfakes were made by colossal visual effects (VFX) companies - Channel 4's Christmas message was made by the UK's Framestore, which also created the VFX for big movies including Doctor Strange and Fantastic Beasts.
Sassy Justice, by the makers of South Park, features a deepfake Donald Trump Trey Parker and Matt Stone (makers of South Park) also tried out deepfakes in 2020. They posted a 15-minute spoof consumer rights programme, Sassy Justice, on YouTube. Its fictitious host, consumer advocate Fred Sassy, was played by a deepfake Donald Trump.
Sassy Justice was a true forerunner of Deep Fake Neighbour Wars, as it created multiple deepfake celebrities also including Julie Andrews and Mark Zuckerberg. The video's hokey visual style spoofed low-budget daytime TV and joked with our gullibility, ensuring its audience was always aware of its AI origins.
ALSO READ: Oops! Makhadzi's wig slides off during sexy' video
IT'S ALL THE REAL THING' Smaller online content creators have been the main innovators of deepfakes in pop culture. Corridor Digital was set up by two geeky guys from Minnesota - Sam Gorski and Nico Pueringer - who moved to Los Angeles to produce viral videos.
Corridor Digital's viral Keanu Reeves video When deepfakes emerged, they jumped on the technology and produced a breakout video, Keanu Reeves Stops A Robbery, in 2019. As deepfakes expert Lisa Bode writes, Corridor Digital's work demonstrated how the technology was widely available and now affordable, or even free, in the case of open-access deepfake generation face replacement apps like Faceswap .
The team's YouTube channel now features dozens of short deepfake videos, many of them boasting how they can do visual effects better than Hollywood studios.
Chris Ume is a Belgian deepfake creator who stunned the online world in 2022 when he produced short videos of Tom Cruise at such a high level of resolution and believability that only the script reassured us they were fake.
Chris Ume's viral deepfaked Tom Cruise video Ume has taken his deepfake expertise into the world of mainstream TV. In August 2020, he entered America's Got Talent with collaborator Tom Graham. The pair brought singer Daniel Emmet on to the stage and rolled a TV camera directly in front of him. When Emmet began to sing, his image on the massive screen above was deepfaked live into that of Simon Cowell performing You're The Inspiration.
The delighted audience and judges progressed the act to the show's final. As with comedy, this use of deepfakes avoided any sense of deception (the real Simon Cowell was sitting with the jury, aghast).
THE FUTURE O
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
06/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/08/2026
Proven offering builds on more than 20,000 live sporting events with greater automation, flexibility, and operational control
LTN , the industry leader in tran...
06/08/2026
Hornets Tech, a specialist in broadcast connectivity and IP video, is bringing a new range of encoders, decoders and an IPTV platform to IBC2026.
Broadcast in...
06/08/2026
Introducing Adobe for ChatGPT: Create, edit and get work done - all in ChatGPT
Deepti Pradeep August 6, 2026
0 Comments
The Adobe plugin in ChatGPT br...
06/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/08/2026
At IBC2026, MediaKind will make its first major appearance as a unified global powerhouse in video, showcasing one of the world's most comprehensive video i...
06/08/2026
Big Blue Marble (#5.A63) will demonstrate how its integrated technology and operational expertise help media companies scale premium services with less complexi...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Scripps Research has received more than $500,000 in first-year fund...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Viruses are masters at invading our cells thanks to specialized proteins that coat their surfaces. When scientists design vaccines, they often crea...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-The brain has its own immune system, which detects threats and mounts a defense. A growing body of evidence has shown that in Alzheimer's disea...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Scripps Research chemist Jin-Quan Yu has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the highest honors a scientist can achieve....
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Scripps Research ranked third in the inaugural 2026 Cure Innovation Index recognizing the top-performing institutes and centers across the United S...
06/08/2026
Benjamin Cravatt, the Gilula Chair of Chemical Biology and a professor of chemis...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Dennis Burton, professor and the James & Jessie Minor Chair in Immu...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Inside every human cell, proteins are constantly being tagged with small chemical modifications after they're produced. Known as post-translati...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA-Scripps Research has established the Ian Wilson Endowed Chair, a new fa...
06/08/2026
Scripps Research's Skaggs Graduate School of Chemical and Biological Science...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Professor Jin-Quan Yu of Scripps Research has been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, the U.K.'s national academy of sciences and ...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-For years, researchers have been hoping for vaccines that protect people against not just one strain of HIV, but every strain of the quickly mutati...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-The Calibr-Skaggs Institute for Innovative Medicines, the nonprofit...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Building the complex 3D molecules needed for new medicines has alwa...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Fentanyl and related variants of the synthetic opioid kill more Americans each year than car accidents and gun violence combined. In too-high doses...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-What do decoding communication between organs and reimagining the future of genome editing have in common? They're among the scientific questio...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Of the 1.2 million people living with HIV in the United States, app...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-For some people, cancer immunotherapies are life-changing. These treatments can turn the body's own immune system against a tumor, either elimi...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Many conditions that cause vision loss share a common feature: the ...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-RNA interference is a natural mechanism for living cells to control whether specific genes are being used or not.
Crowned with the 2006 Nobel Priz...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-The drugs that keep rheumatoid arthritis in check may one day help people stop drinking. A new Scripps Research study shows that an anti-inflammato...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Antibiotic resistance is one of the most urgent threats to global health, linked to an estimated 4.7 million deaths worldwide in 2019 alone. As mor...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Some of the world's best-selling diabetes drugs depend on a che...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Detecting infectious disease threats early and responding quickly can dramatically alter the course of an infectious outbreak. Technologies such as...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-Molecular biophysicist Joan Pulupa will join Scripps Research in Ja...
06/08/2026
LA JOLLA, CA-HIV is globally so diverse, consisting of hundreds of thousands of ...
06/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/08/2026
At this year's SET EXPO, PlayBox Neo will present recent innovations across its PlayBox Neo Suite and integrated range of broadcast media solutions. By show...
06/08/2026
Live demo at IBC2026 VisualOn Booth, Hall 5, Stand A55
Amsterdam, Netherlands Modern Streaming Solutions Private Limited, a rising force in India's dig...
06/08/2026
Screen Australia and YouTube Australia fund five new teams through eleventh Skip...
06/08/2026
How Karukera Studio Built a Media Production Hub with SNS EVO
Melanie Ciotti August 5, 2026
0 Comments
Hero images displays Karukera Studio in Sainte-...
06/08/2026
NHK drama series Rosanjin no Kamado shot on PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton August 5, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K and DaVinci Resolve Studio capture the...
06/08/2026
Camera Match: AutoSetup 3d Plugin / script for Photomontages- Cinema 4D
Jamie Cardoso August 5, 2026
0 Comments
If you do any kind of Architectural Vi...
06/08/2026
In Time airs Monday 10 August at 9.35pm on RT One and RT Player
In Time is the first film account of the life of D nal Lunny, one of the most influential Iri...
06/08/2026
Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on how developers, 3D practitioners and enterprises can transform their workflows u...