A new trend is gaining momentum on Facebook Marketplace: sellers are adding images of attractive girls generated by artificial intelligence to their ads for used cars, motorcycles, and special equipment. This is supposed to make the offer stand out from thousands of similar ones, but in practice it only brings the authors a bunch of views and spam from pranksters.
A new trend is gaining momentum on Facebook Marketplace: sellers are adding images of attractive girls generated by artificial intelligence to their ads for used cars, motorcycles, and special equipment. This is supposed to make the offer stand out from thousands of similar ones, but in practice it only brings the authors a bunch of views and spam from pranksters.
As Business Insider reports, a classic move like «sex sells» in the digital space of personal ads has received an unexpected AI reinterpretation.
A striking example is the experience of Rogelio Llamas from Southern California, who has been trying to sell his 2013 Jeep Wrangler for 19 weeks. To make his ad stand out from the competition, he added an image of a curvy woman in a bikini, denim shorts, and cowboy boots, leaning on the hood, to his photos of the car. Only the girl turned out to be completely unreal — Llamas created her using a neural network.
The seller spied the idea from one of the YouTube bloggers who teaches reselling things. According to Llamas, influencers advise generating girls with non-standard forms, and not according to the usual model standards. This supposedly creates an effect of intrigue and causes a reaction like: «Damn, is she really real?»
This trend has already gone viral on Reddit and X (Twitter). Users are posting dozens of screenshots of generated AI models posing against the backdrop of abandoned hot tubs, old Mercedes, dump trucks, and Caterpillar heavy machinery. Most of the photos clearly show the characteristic «artifacts» of neural networks: strange body proportions, unrealistic lighting, or too smooth skin.
However, it turns out that attracting attention doesn’t guarantee sales conversion. Llamas admits that after adding the AI beauty, the number of views for his Jeep Wrangler skyrocketed, but there were no more serious buyers.
«People write to me and ask if the girl comes with the car, if she’s real, or they generally think that the owner of the profile is her. I also get a lot of negativity and advice to „go to the gym,“ even though it’s not even a real person. There are almost no real buyers,» the seller complains.
In addition, the specificity of Facebook Marketplace is that buyers are usually looking for «live», amateur photos from ordinary people. Overly high-quality or artificially attractive shots often raise suspicion that the ad is being sold by a reseller or a potential scammer.
