Stand-up comedians are finding their material performed by artificial characters on Instagram: polished, revealingly dressed figures whose videos can look like the original comics’ clips. The accounts turn jokes that have already succeeded online into new posts, while directing viewers toward subscription content. Several comedians say the copied versions have reached more people than their own work.
When a familiar joke appears in a new face
Comedian Julia Jasunas learned that one of her jokes had been reproduced by an account featuring a purported performer named Aylen Skye. The video repeated her bit about renting a room in her two-bedroom apartment to a cute guy, including the hesitations in her delivery. Skye’s profile linked to AylenTV.com, which redirected to adult content on Fanvue, a subscription service.
Jasunas suspected the performer was AI-generated. The uniformly positive comments on Skye’s posts stood out to her, especially compared with the hostile or objectifying responses she says female comics often receive. For Jasunas, the problem was not simply that someone had taken a joke. She described her work being repackaged in a sexualized format for someone else’s profit.
She reported the video to Meta as impersonation. According to Jasunas, the company said it did not violate its community guidelines because the account was not claiming to be her. Most of Skye’s posts are now marked as AI content, though the account itself is not.
A pattern built around proven material
WIRED identified eight comedians whose videos had been replicated by AI-generated women, with several of the accounts following one another on social media. The copied clips were already successful stand-up videos. Their new versions often had stronger lighting and sound, and the performers wore tighter outfits—changes that could help the remakes attract attention.
The accounts also posted fabricated late-night interviews featuring hosts such as Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel, along with occasional racist or transphobic jokes aimed at the MAGA crowd. Some profiles were labeled as AI-generated, but others were not, and labels on individual videos were inconsistent.
Instagram’s rules prohibit impersonation, but the article reports that they do not clearly address copying content that is not copyrighted. The platform permits AI content when it is properly labeled. That leaves a distinction between falsely presenting an account as a specific person and using another creator’s material without claiming to be them.
Comedians question what reporting can accomplish
Mandy Martino, another comedian whose joke was used by Skye, argued that protections need to keep pace with rapidly changing AI tools. The concern extends beyond losing credit for a single bit: if copied performances are rewarded with bigger audiences, original creators may struggle to get attention for work they made themselves.
Comedian Steph Clark had been documenting similar accounts since June. The technology improved over the following months, making some videos harder to distinguish from footage of real performers. The shift from awkward, visibly artificial clips to more convincing ones raises the stakes for both viewers trying to identify synthetic accounts and comedians trying to show that their work was copied.
A second example puts likeness in focus
George Brett Olson saw a near-identical version of one of his bits on an account called Tiffany Sloane. His original joke criticized Republicans for focusing on illegal immigration while overlooking AI risks. Olson posted a side-by-side comparison; the clips shared similar backdrops and clothing, while the punch line differed.
Olson said followers reported the video to Meta and were told it did not break community guidelines. After he publicly called out the account, Sloane commented, “sorry, won’t happen again,” then removed the video and many other Reels. The account did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
Olson later tagged Instagram head Adam Mosseri. Mosseri said banning AI content was not practical, while also saying the company wanted to send more traffic to original creators and should consider what to do when AI creators copy content wholesale. Meta spokesperson Francis Brennan declined to comment further, and WIRED reported that all the AI-generated accounts it had flagged remained on the platform.
The cases show the practical gap comedians are confronting: platforms can allow AI-made characters while still struggling to respond when those characters reuse jokes and, in Olson’s view, his likeness. For creators, a label that says a video is AI-generated does not answer who made the joke. And when a report does not lead to action, the copied version can keep circulating alongside—or ahead of—the original.