Mike IRAK

- ☆ VR / GRAFFITI / PIXEL ART / FASHION / A.I ☆- ✨＼(＾▽＾*)いらっしゃ～いっ(*＾▽＾)／ ✨ - “ The Best Things in Life are Free ”

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

“Revenge of The Hood Ninja Boss Fight” https://t.co/EvfzAImUtd

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

In 7 months, Sora went from a $1B Disney deal to $2.1M in lifetime revenue and a death notice. OpenAI shipped the replacement today.

Sora 2 launched September 30, 2025. 100,000 downloads on day one, 1 million in five days, faster than ChatGPT's own debut. OpenAI called it "the GPT-3.5 moment for video." Two months later, Disney committed a $1 billion equity investment and licensed 200 characters across Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars. The first time Disney had ever licensed its IP to an AI platform. Bob and Sam did CNBC together. The story was that Hollywood had found its next distribution rail.

The actual numbers, when Wall Street Journal pried them out six weeks ago: $15 million per day in inference costs. $2.1 million in total lifetime revenue. Not monthly. Total. OpenAI was spending $15M a day to generate roughly $6K a day. Downloads dropped 66% from peak inside three months. On March 24 OpenAI killed the app with a three-sentence X post. Disney learned less than one hour before the public announcement and walked from the $1B.

The app officially dies in 5 days. Today, April 21, OpenAI shipped ChatGPT Images 2.0 with a video attached to the launch tweet captioned "Video made with ChatGPT Images." A chameleon walking on a stack of books with readable titles, consistent across frames. The capability Sora burned $2.7 billion trying to own, folded into the chat product 800 million people already pay for.

This is the 200 IQ trade nobody's pricing: OpenAI just proved, with a $2.7B science experiment, that the consumer AI social app thesis is broken.

Every standalone AI consumer app with feed mechanics is drafting the same obituary. https://t.co/7uyF0lGOaA's retention collapse. Replika. The entire "AI companion" category. Pi before Inflection got absorbed. The distribution math that worked for TikTok and Instagram at diffusion-ad compute costs does not work at AI inference costs. You cannot run a social feed where every piece of content costs dollars of GPU to generate and monetize through ads that clear pennies.

The winners in AI video and image ship their models inside workflows people already live in. ChatGPT, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Adobe, Figma. Runway and Pika are more exposed than their valuations suggest. Midjourney's $10B Discord-centric bet gets harder as the big three bundle video and image into subscriptions people already pay for.

Sora was the GPT-3.5 moment for video and the GPT-3.5 moment for a harder lesson about distribution. Generative AI lives inside the chat window and the spreadsheet and the design file people already use. The standalone consumer app with a feed is the wrong shape. That lesson just cost OpenAI $2.7 billion and Disney's first AI licensing deal.

OpenAI's IPO story cleans up overnight. Kill the money pit, ship the capability where the customers already are, file the S-1. Five days before Sora's tombstone gets engraved, today's chameleon video is the epitaph the market just wrote.

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

@monitoringmts @MTSlive ✨🇩🇴✨

[Living Proof New York @livingproof_ny]

Lee Quiñones for Living Proof Radio. Full episode available on the Living Proof Patreon.

Lee Quiñones is a pioneering graffiti artist and painter widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of New York City’s graffiti movement. Raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Quiñones began painting subway cars in the mid-1970s and became known for his large-scale work that elevated graffiti from tags to visual storytelling. A key member of the legendary graffiti crew The Fabulous Five, he was among the first writers to paint entire subway cars; his whole cars were celebrated for their technical mastery and scale during a foundational era of New York’s history.

Quiñones’s work helped redefine graffiti as a legitimate art form rather than mere vandalism. By the late 1970s, he transitioned from painting subways to exhibiting in galleries, becoming one of the first graffiti artists to bridge the gap between the streets and the fine art world.

Lee Quiñones has appeared in seminal films chronicling New York’s graffiti and hip-hop culture, including the legendary Wild Style, where he played a leading role. His influence has extended across generations, inspiring artists in graffiti, street art, and contemporary painting alike.

Now on Youtube, iTunes and Spotify.
Full episode on the Living Proof Patreon.

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

1994 The Northface McDonald’s Happy Meal Ad

[まとっち มะตอย @matoi_thai]

赤ピエロ vs 白髭紳士
#Sora2

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

The SORA app may have just changed the entire game. A.I slop as actual content is fully a reality now. I don’t see how this model can sustain its insane IP infringements after this model is fully released to the public.

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

“A Princess on a unicorn using a selfie stick”
The real prompt was longer, but it’s still interesting to see the difference between high motion & low motion videos using Midjourney. (sound efx were added in post)

[Duke of Demos @YeOldeSideQuest]

🤺 NEW EPISODE 🏰

On this day, we commence the latest tale of SIDE QUEST, wherein we knight founders bold enough to demo their wares and embark upon an epic task.

Today’s quest: we rode wheeled planks with @vascodegraaff, the maker of Luminote, and learned about his grand endeavors.

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

@YeOldeSideQuest @vascodegraaff ✨🛹⚔️🍣✨

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

@alex_prompter @YeOldeSideQuest 💯 %

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

MidJourney V7 remains unmatched when it comes to overall dynamic aesthetics. Surprisingly, its new image to video mode generates extremely fluid videos. MJ continues to outshine other models by a wide margin and is a strong contender for the best image to video model as well.

[Duke of Demos @YeOldeSideQuest]

This morn we embarked beside @xuelinda7, Founder of Eleven and Abandoner of MIT, on a side quest to reclaim her rightful drip.

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

@YeOldeSideQuest @xuelinda7 ✨💯⚔️💯✨

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

@midjourney

[Duke of Demos @YeOldeSideQuest]

On the morrow we shall commence upon… a side quest.

[Juliana @juliazniv]

Your launch videos were meant to be seen on the big screen.

Introducing PLAYBACK, a film festival for tech. In SF. 9/9.

Who will you nominate?

[Living Proof New York @livingproof_ny]

Futura 2000 in conversation with Chino BYI Living Proof Radio.

Futura 2000 is a legendary graffiti writer, designer, and painter who emerged in the 1970s as part of New York City's first wave of subway graffiti writers.

He began tagging subway trains under the name "Futura 2000" and was one of the first artists to bring graffiti into galleries. In the early 1980s, he collaborated with The Clash, painting live on stage during their concerts and designing artwork for their albums, which helped introduce graffiti to a broader international audience.

His work spans fine art, fashion, and commercial collaborations. He’s partnered with brands like Nike, Supreme, Levi’s, BMW, and Off-White, often blurring the lines between street culture and high design. He’s also known for his character "Pointman", a recurring figure in his art and toy design.

Today, Futura is celebrated as a pioneer whose influence has shaped generations of artists across disciplines.

Now on our website, Youtube, iTunes & Spotify.

Full episode on the Living Proof Patreon.

[Living Proof New York @livingproof_ny]

POST VSOP and Mike IRAK for Living Proof / The North Face.

“Our World”, a book by Living Proof / The North Face; will be released on 7/2/25.

The book will be available on the Living Proof Patreon, shipped to Patreon members for July, 2025.

A private event will be held this Saturday in New York to celebrate the book release. Details in the coming days.

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

North Face ZAKU’s

[Mike IRAK @MikeIRAK]

Prompt Theory 💭