A Deepfake is a piece of synthetic media where a person’s face or voice is digitally replaced with someone else's using deep learning artificial intelligence. When applied to notable actors like Karen Gillan, creators leverage specific technological frameworks:
Deepfakes are synthetic media, such as videos, images, or audio recordings, that use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms to create realistic but fake content. This technology can be used to manipulate or alter existing media, or to generate entirely new content.
In the sprawling, ungoverned corners of the internet, a quiet revolution is taking place. It is not happening in boardrooms or on film sets, but in the basements of hobbyists and the Discord servers of synthetic media artists. Here, the old borders between actor, character, and audience have dissolved. At the heart of this new frontier lies a peculiar nexus of terms: , Mondomonger , Deepfakes , and Karen Gillan . Fan-Topia.Mondomonger.Deepfakes.Karen.Gillan.as...
International responses have varied. Spain’s conviction of fifteen schoolchildren for creating AI‑generated nudes of classmates set a precedent for holding minors accountable for synthetic abuse. Legal experts like Professor Clare McGlynn of Durham University have called for future regulations to also criminalize the solicitation of non‑consensual deepfake content, not merely its creation and distribution.
Gillan’s other recent projects further underscore her engagement with themes of identity and replication. She has joined the cast of the Highlander reboot alongside Henry Cavill, and will star in the supernatural thriller Blasphemous alongside Josh Hutcherson and Clive Owen. Her directorial debut, The Party’s Over , which she also wrote and stars in, has been acquired by distributor The Orchard for North American release. A Deepfake is a piece of synthetic media
There is a desire for mastery and control. The ability to conjure a hyper-realistic digital double of a powerful woman like Marvel's Nebula—or Gillan herself—offers a seductive sense of god-like power over a figure otherwise unattainable. This is amplified by the anonymity and reward of deepfake communities. As one study of deepfake conversations on Reddit found, these spaces can foster "pro-deepfake behaviors... where users are highly supportive to create deepfakes and even some users provide deepfake as a service and monetize deepfake creations".
Mondomonger began as a joke. It was a community of cinephiles who swapped speculative casting—what if a beloved actor played in a world utterly unlike their usual roles?—and a few talented hobbyists started making mockups: posters, audio snippets, trailers stitched from public footage. The best of these captured the electric delight of fan imagination. Then generative tools got better. Faces could be composited seamlessly; voices could be synthesized; entire performances could be conjured from hours of public clips. In the sprawling, ungoverned corners of the internet,
: Leading AI organizations are implementing cryptographic watermarking standards, such as the Coalition for Content Authenticity and Provenance (C2PA), to track the provenance of digital media.
: These prefixes operate as online aliases, watermarks, or community tags. In the digital archiving space, groups or solo creators use unique identifiers to brand their outputs, allowing users to track quality, style, or updates across multiple platforms.
The rise of highly searchable, celebrity-focused synthetic media has triggered significant global legislative pushback. Because these files often map celebrity likenesses onto unauthorized contexts, several legal frameworks apply: Legal Area Primary Mechanism Impact on Synthetic Media
Legal frameworks must evolve to prioritize the rights of victims, providing clear pathways to justice. Professor Clare McGlynn, a specialist in legal regulation of pornography, argues that future laws should "also criminalise the solicitation of such non-consensual content, along with creation and distribution". This goes after the demand side of the equation.