This Christmas, a lot of young people unwrapped something they never asked for, and it was not just an unfortunate sweater. Across social media, especially TikTok, teens and twenty somethings have been sharing the strange, flimsy, and sometimes never-delivered gifts their parents ordered after falling for glossy online ads that were quietly powered by AI-generated images. The pitch looked polished and believable on the screen. The reality under the tree was often a bargain-bin surprise.
The posts all follow the same heartbreakingly funny pattern. A parent spots a product photo that seems almost too perfect, clicks buy, and waits for a miracle to arrive in the mail. When the package finally shows up, the item looks like a distant cousin of what was advertised, with odd proportions, cheap materials, and details that make you wonder how it passed as a real listing in the first place. Some families were disappointed. Others could not stop laughing at how absurd the end result was.
One of the most shared examples came from actress and director Tara Rule, who posted a video that racked up millions of views. She showed a sweater her father planned to give her mother, part of a string of gifts he had chosen based on images that looked professionally staged online. In a follow-up, she explained that at least one item never arrived at all, and she ended up giving her dad a crash course in spotting scams. Her takeaway was simple and familiar, if the price is unbelievably low and the product photo seems flawless, it usually is.
Other TikTok users chimed in with their own holiday mishaps, and the variety is what makes the trend so addictive. The user @ava_kampa1 shared what her dad believed was a Tiffany-style stained-glass dog lamp. What turned up was a cheap imitation that barely resembled the ad, and she described it with the kind of dramatic honesty only the internet can deliver. Meanwhile, @thatdumbathlete posted a truly unfortunate mug her mother ordered, the kind of item that makes you immediately picture a gorgeous listing photo that never stood a chance against the factory version.
@ava_kampa1 this is a hate crime 💀 #aiscam #facebookscam #christmas #christmas2025 #fyp ♬ original sound – ftc izzyalt
The phrase “dads falling for AI” became a running joke, but plenty of relatives ended up in the same trap. The user @missbergie showed her dad trying on a sweater that looked nothing like the picture, and his disappointment said everything without needing a long explanation. And in one of the season’s most brutal reveals, @hodgepodgers shared an advent calendar her grandmother bought, convinced each little door held a sample of real whiskey. Instead, it contained tiny plastic bottles and laminated pictures of drinks, a holiday letdown wrapped in cardboard.
Have you ever received a gift that looked wildly different from what was promised online, and what do you think should be done to stop these AI-fueled scam listings from spreading? Share your thoughts in the comments.
