The terrorist attack on tourists in the Baisaran Valley near Pahalgam, Kashmir, was a tragic event that shocked the nation. Yet, what stood out just as much as the tragedy itself was the response it received from many people on social media. Many users chose to share Artificial Intelligence (AI)-regenerated, visually enhanced versions of a deeply distressing image from the crime scene — a woman sitting beside the lifeless body of her newly wedded husband.
When an original image exists – raw and unfiltered, conveying the gravity of loss and the lifelong trauma – why does there seem to be a preference for an altered, beautified version of the same scene? What purpose does it serve, and at what cost?
The answer may lie in a growing shift in how we process information and emotion on social media, a parallel universe that is quickly becoming our only reality. Morality is now determined by a single variable: the number of likes, or the likability, a post garners.
In this new normal, what is moral is simply what is more likable. Morality becomes ‘more L(ikes)’.
This regeneration of grief into something more visually pleasing reflects a growing moral dissonance within our digital communities, if we can still call them that. In truth, what exists in the digital world are not communities bound by shared values or relationships, but networks of individuals connected by content, and not connection.
The moral weight of an event is no longer tied to its emotional or human depth, but to its visual appeal — its potential to go viral or trend.
This is the moral paradox of our hyperreal world, where we struggle to connect with anything raw, human, or unfiltered. Our empathy is dulled by the normalisation of violence, voyeurism, and visual manipulation encountered in every swipe and scroll.
Instagram reels and YouTube shorts – platforms where we spend much of our time, and where we let our children spend theirs – form an unfiltered world of their own, one largely devoid of accountability or censorship. When individual self-portraits are more heavily filtered than the content depicting real-world tragedies, it becomes clear how distorted our engagement with reality has become.
We have been so overexposed to the aesthetics of ugliness that we have become numb. Unless something is viral enough to deliver a dopamine or adrenaline rush, we simply scroll past it.
In chasing what is more likable or viral, we risk losing the very thing that makes us human — the ability to feel for others without filters.
It was no surprise that one of the first big social media handles to post a Ghibli-styled picture of the mourning woman next to her husband was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The party’s Chhattisgarh handle had gone a step ahead with the Ghibli trend, adding the caption, “Dharm poocha, jaati nahi” (religion was asked, not caste). It was nothing but a
trumpet call by the Hindutva right wing to rally Hindu identity against the Muslim minority in the nation.
They are well aware that the only thing that truly defines Hinduism is its caste structure, and that caste has always been the biggest internal challenge for right-wing forces trying to organise Hindus against the ‘others’.
So it’s no surprise that a BJP social media handle would eagerly seize even a fleeting cultural moment, desperately looking for a needle prick where they can thread the illusion of belonging within Hinduism, an illusion they continue to propagate.
Even those who genuinely feel for the victims often believe they need to share a more appealing image in order to gain more engagement and attention to express solidarity and support. Whether it’s a political party with a harmful agenda or an individual with a compassionate heart, what we’ve collectively absorbed from social media is the tendency to capitalise on every opportunity, even if it involves life or death.
Some participate by choice, using these moments to deliberately propagate hate; others are simply conditioned to play along with the algorithms, unaware that they are reinforcing a system that prioritises visibility over values.
The Pahalgam tragedy is not an isolated case, but part of a trend that has been unfolding for some time.
In 2024, for example, a wave of AI-generated images of children in Gaza went viral on social media during the Israeli attacks on Palestine. These images – visually striking, high-resolution, and emotionally charged – were later exposed as fake. They had been entirely fabricated through AI prompts, and fact-checking media initiatives revealed their inauthenticity later.
In contrast to that, a photograph from Syria in 2014 showing hungry Palestinians awaiting emergency food amidst the horrors of their bomb-ravaged neighbourhood near Damascus and was retweeted eight million times in the days that followed, was called out as “a fabricated one created using digital tools”. Days later, the United Nations reiterated that it is authentic. Yet, the hyper realistic picture still confuses people to believe in its authenticity or not.
At the same time, there is also a different kind of AI usage.
In the ongoing Palestine-Israel conflict, many artists have used AI to generate images that express their political dissent and grief. These weren’t regenerated from existing photos, but rather imaginative compositions meant to evoke solidarity or resistance. They had a vision, their goal was to communicate a message, not to replace reality.
One widely remembered image from recent history is the photograph of a Syrian child’s body washed ashore during his family’s attempt to migrate. It was a raw and unfiltered representation of real-life tragedy — an image that resonated globally, not because it was stylised or enhanced, but because it captured the unbearable human cost of displacement and war.
Over time, even that image was recreated and reshared, often by those who genuinely cared about human suffering. But the line between commemoration and aestheticisation grew blurry. Despite good intentions, these recreated images too began to blend into the stream of content vying for attention, subject to the same cycles of engagement, likes, and virality.
A recent study in neuroscience found that AI-regenerated images can alter our actual memories by replacing them with manipulated visuals. If this becomes widespread, it may prove to be one of the greatest curses a generation could face.
Even genuine acts of empathy and solidarity can become part of the broader aesthetic trends that dominate digital platforms. In a media environment where hyper-realistic visuals often carry more influence than unembellished reality, there is a growing risk that facts, emotional depth, and the gravity of real-world loss may be overshadowed. Over time, this may lead to a shift where the focus moves from momentum to reach, and from empathy to engagement metrics.
Arya AT is a passionate writer and translator. A pessimist by intellect, yet an optimist by will, she clings to words as both refuge and rebellion.
Views expressed are the author’s own.