Frickin’ Idiots
On Saturday, comedian Brian Monarch posted an Instagram video which used deepfake technology to turn Joe Rogan into the character Dr. Evil from the “Austin Powers” films.
In the video, a Rogan-faced Dr. Evil is introduced to the character Mini-Me, who now bears the face of comedian Brendan Schaub. It’s not the first time Joe Rogan has been hit by bizarre media-manipulating tech, but it marks the latest in a growing trend of people using deepfakes to mismatch the actors in TV and film, showing how the tech that many expected to undermine democracy is instead becoming a weird art project.
That’s Doctor Evil
The video shows Rogan’s face moving and emoting almost seamlessly as Dr. Evil, who was in actuality played by Mike Myers. The video retains Myers’ original voice.
The Austin Powers films are a surprisingly good choice for deepfake manipulation, since Myers played four separate characters over the course of the trilogy. The original films relied on costume changes and other effects to put his multiple characters all in the same scenes, so tech that can copy and paste his face onto someone else’s body could have saved the crew a lot of time.
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