Spotting AI Crochet Scams on Etsy — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:01] day and age to be a creator or somebody who wants to learn a new skill. Like you want to learn how to crochet or sew or whatever and you're like, okay, I'm going to do it the legit way. I'm going to go find a pattern to go and teach me

[00:13] to go make something that I've never made before. Where are you supposed to you know, because like Etsy is where all the sellers are at. And you go on Etsy looks so good. You see a little strawberry bag, you love strawberries,

[00:29] it's summer time, it'll fit so well. You buy the bag and then you start trying to make it and you realize, wait a sec, things aren't quite adding up. And that's because there's way too many of these freaking AI sellers on Etsy

[00:42] selling AI generated crochet patterns. And I found one because I was looking for crochet patterns. I was looking closely and I was like, this doesn't really look like crochet to me. Something looks wrong. Those aren't hate

[00:54] look at the store cuz this is not right. There's way too many AI crochet scams on Etsy and just AI scams on Etsy in general. Because what is this? Crochet

[01:06] strawberry tote bag PDF pattern, cute, trendy, handmade. This looks so AI to me. Now, depending on what yarn you use, right? Things are going to behave a little differently, but as far as I know, your strap is not going to stand

[01:21] up like that. It doesn't behave like this. Crochet is floppy because it's it's yarn. It's not going to not going to stand up stiffly like we zoom in, right? Then you have to ask, okay, what stitch was used to make

[01:38] this? And as somebody who crochets, there are a couple different types of stitching, okay? There are a single stitch, a single crochet, a double also do some more fancy type of crochet stitches or whatever, but when you look

[01:52] at the item, the listing, the image that is being advertised, you should kind of be able to tell what stitch is being used here. So, this looks like it should bit of cat fur on this, okay? But, this is a bag that I was working on that I

[02:08] yarn. It looks a little funky, okay? This You know, your girl was trying and stitches here or there. But, this was made using a half double crochet. Yeah, I'm I'm new to crochet, okay? So, forgive forgive the scuffness, but you

[02:22] what every single stitch is supposed to be as you're looking at it because this is obviously handmade. As you can see, well, many a double crochets and many a slight wonky stitch tension happening here, okay? Oopsies. I can't tell what

[02:36] stitch is being used here. You can see each individual stitch makes sense. You tension was a little too loose and I left a bunch of holes, okay? But, you was being used. Again, you can also see the seam that I have here, which better

[02:49] crocheters can blend that in. I am not one of those. Again, here, you look at this like a single crochet? Is this a crochet? Is it like a triple crochet? Any experienced crocheter can't tell or

[03:03] is the problem where it's a scam, right? Because if somebody is like new to crochet, they're going to look at this and be like, "Oh, but this looks little fancy." I mean, the big one is you can tell, like these little knobs,

[03:15] right? Which is like each row essentially will will be made up of like one set of stitches. But, then there's like gaps here. You see this? This row, one is not the same as this one, right? And then this one is not the same as

[03:27] this. The other one is like here, up at the very top where you can see the strap. The strap is not made up of actual crochet stitches, either because there's all this like garbling happening here. You know the same thing with like

[03:40] AI-generated art? When you look at it and it's like, "Oh, this looks like a little closer and you're like, "Wait, that detail doesn't actually make sense." That's one way you can tell here. You can see there's way too much

[03:52] details for this to be yarn. This looks like a chain. This doesn't look like something is made the same, it should look basically similar or the same, and the strawberry has these little strawberry leaves, shouldn't each leaf

[04:07] look like it's the same? But this leaf looks very different from this leaf. We can see at this leaf, right? There's There's these two like C rings that kind of appear in the stitching that you don't see in all the other leaves.

[04:19] one is the extra like context clues. This is just beyond the crochet stitches. But again, it's like the same thing as AI-generated imagery art, right? We have too many ribbons for what is being shown. There is a ribbon for

[04:33] the leaf is at the end. We have another vine with a leaf, but then there's like another vine behind it. But there's no leaf attached to this one. And then you look at the other imagery for the finer details. Spacious and sturdy. So here we

[04:46] see the bag with stuff in it. But the context clues don't add up. You can see on this side, there's there's the two attachments for the straps. Where are go? Where do these straps go? Gone. And then also look, there's no extra leaves

[04:59] in between that is not present in the actual photo. And this is the second image. And then, you know, because we have a person in here now, even more context clues that some stuff is a little bit off. Look at the

[05:12] yarn. What is happening with the yarn over here? This is not a regular ball of yarn. No yarn looks like this. The physical behavior of yarn, you know, you wrap it around into a ball. That's not right. That's not a ball of yarn. What

[05:24] is this little leaf on the floor? And then a crochet hook is supposed to be a hook. It's a hook. There is a hook at the end. That's not a hook. And then Come on. These little stitches inside the the crochet pattern for this granny

[05:37] little white things. We look at the drink over here, the strawberry is just also has odd details. This is just so annoying because like Again, these types of scams get legitimate people. This is in bags right now. Oh my god. Wait, this

[05:51] shop is actually full of AI generated crochet. Oh my god. There's so many. Look, they have this one. Mermaid corset skirt set step-by-step. This is the back of it. And they apparently give you a kit with the crochet pattern, the yarn.

[06:06] enough yarn to make a dress this big. Like a full-body dress with sleeves. What is this supposed to be? I don't see this fabric anywhere in this design. Here's one thing too, right? Take a look at the images. Where you can wear this?

[06:19] Why does the dress not look the same photo to photo? In this picture, there's this like beige stain across the lap. In this photo, the dress the bottom half of the skirt is textured, but it looks completely smooth like one even

[06:35] stitching throughout or this. I don't know about you guys, but wearing a full-length crochet gown to the beach, it could be for a fun photoshoot, but that sounds like a nightmare to get grains of sand out of your yarn. I

[06:47] cat fur out of my yarn projects, okay? But like sand? Oh, no. Oh, boy. This is just one of them, too. Okay, wait. Let me Let's take a look at another one. There's more. So, here's another one. Crochet book sleeve. This again, like

[07:01] pointed out, this is AI generated. It's not actual crochet. The big one again is these are not crochet stitches. Again, crochet, not a double crochet. Like you see here, right? Every little chunkier,

[07:16] it's all different. Each row, they should all look even. Unless, you know, pattern. Sometimes some rows will have intermixing, but it will look like roughly even. If it's a mixed pattern where they do like one stitch, skip a

[07:29] that throughout the entire row. Because crochet is made up row by row. You don't see that here. Here we have a row and a row and a row, but all the stitches per row look different. And then behind that, right? We have a row, but all of

[07:44] like it's like a a cursor pointing to the upper left, but that doesn't look look like they're going straight. Again, like, you know, some more images of like actual crochet. Like, here's some video of somebody crocheting, but you can see

[07:58] like row by row, it should look even. And even if it's like a mixed stitch row by row, you can see like every row it looks very even. And we don't see that variances per row that doesn't make sense. Also, not to mention the images

[08:11] a little book sleeve where it's vertical. So, the flap to open it and And then in the example photo in the bottom right-hand corner, it's a horizontal book sleeve where you put the book in the long way. That's not what

[08:25] also confused about is like this is the second slide, right? Where crochet book the book sleeve is in a box. So, like, do they give you the yarn and the book sleeve for you? Or do they give you the yarn and you're you're supposed to make

[08:40] they give you a random ball of yarn on top of that, which like you then wouldn't need? And then we have a bunch of AI-generated people putting books into their crochet bags. This is so weird. Also, look again at the yarn. The

[08:53] ball of yarn is not doing yarn behavior. Why is there a hole here? When you have a ball of yarn, the holes are at the ends. You don't get one like in the middle of your yarn unless your cat like stuck his paws in there or something

[09:05] So again, do your due diligence when it comes to looking for patterns. It sucks don't know what you don't know. It looks legit to you, and then you buy it and cloud, so why is it a rectangle? Something's wrong." A site that has a

[09:19] lot of really good handmade patterns is Ravelry. The photographs look very doesn't have that like shiny anime style look that a lot of the AI crochet images will have. So, Ravelry's a great place to go look, but I highly recommend you

[09:33] I've been doing it for a year and a half, and it's really fun. So, yeah. It scammers coming into the space. But, with that, if you like this video, I Don't forget to check me out on Etsy. I have digital art there for streamers and

[09:48] creators. I also have a coffee with free resources like a free sponsorship guide week, Mondays and Saturdays at 6:00 p.m. and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. PST as a podcast with my friend. And this segment was actually talked about on stream. So,

[10:02] I hope to catch y'all there or in another one of my videos. Peace.