The internet is currently being flooded by a tidal wave of AI videos, every day more and more are uploaded, most of them are very bad, probably because not just the visuals but also the research was done by an LLM or by a human who didn’t spend as much time doing research as they should have.
There’s no fighting this Tsunami, it takes me longer to review and debunk these videos than it takes them to make them.
Still, I’ll follow Don Quixote into battle.
I will not share links to where you can find the videos or channels I review.
Chloe VS. History has been getting a lot of attention in the media recently, mostly because a lot of people seemed to think the young woman in the videos was real but she is actually completely AI generated, by a man.
Not that many videos have been made so far, about 30.
But in the short time that this “creator” has been uploading (just a couple of months) the Chloe social media accounts have been gathering millions of views and shares.
And the comments are very positive and excited, people are enjoying leaning history this way and think it’s a great way to teach about this subject.
Setting aside for a minute how bad it is to use AI (environment impact, stealing from humans to train), I’m just going to look at if what all these millions of people are learning is what they should be learning.
I’ve not watched all of them, I’ve only looked at a few to see if they repeat myths & misconceptions about the past.
The visual quality of these videos is quite high, its no longer easy to see that this is all AI, people are already believing that its all or at least partially live action.
I’ve seen big budget films/tv shows that look worse.
And visually some of it is also pretty good, here research has been done to get things right.
But mistakes still slipped through the net.
The idea is simple, young modern woman goes back in time to walk around the past.
Her first visit was to Tudor London, which is, predictably, depicted as having dirty, muddy streets.
Although an overpopulated city like London of course had its problems and neighbourhoods where things regularly went wrong, hygiene wise, they still had strict pollution laws, streets were cleaned, gutters were meant for rain and gray water, not waste.
Somehow when Medieval or early modern Europe is depicted it has always just rained…
More about Medieval/Early modern hygiene & the state of cities can be read here:
https://fakehistoryhunter.net/2025/11/26/articles-links-videos-about-medieval-hygiene/
Of course everyone wears brown, drab, rags.
In reality Medieval and early modern people loved colours, fabrics were dyed, recycled, dyed again.
Oh cool, she found Atlantis…
Next she travels to 1348 London:
And of course she visits the iconic plague doctor with the bird beak mask… one small problem… this particular outfit didn’t exist till the 17th century and there were probably just a handful, I know of 1 in France, maybe 1 in Italy, that’s about it.
There would not have been one in 14th century London.
The Dancing plague, of course, only muddy streets, no colours, only drab rags.
The next video is longer and was uploaded to Youtube, Tudor London is visited again:
Again, more muddy streets
Are these potatoes?
A pig bumps into her, a modern pig (pigs looked different then), running amok in a city where they generally had strict laws about pigs wandering freely, they were literally known to kill babies, so the rules were quite strict.
They had to be transported on a leash, only on market days or when taken to a butcher, etc.
More about medieval pigs can be read in the book The medieval pig’ by Dolly Jørgensen (2024), that I reviewed here:
https://fakehistoryhunter.net/2024/08/05/book-review-the-medieval-pig-by-dolly-jorgensen/
From this book:
14th century:
Of course these laws existing suggests that it was at least now and then a problem, but if you want to give people an idea of what life was like back then showing this old trope will give viewers the idea that the old Hollywood cliché of dirty, chaotic cities with chickens, cattle and pigs everywhere doing whatever they wanted, is not the way.
And as I said, pigs used to look different:
Executioners usually didn’t wear masks.
Candles were expensive, oil lamps would be a lot more common, but, I have to admit that this creator at least shows some scenes that show the past as not just being awful and filthy, there are scenes where people are having fun:
I don’t think envelopes looked like that back then:
She meets a famous guy, whatshisface, Henry something?
She tries to convince Anne Boleyn’ to make a run for it:
Yeah, no, that’s not what Tudor cutlery looked like:
It looked more like this or this.
For AI these Chloe vs history videos are quite impressive, as for content, I have seen worse, so much worse.
But it is still a shame that some easily avoidable mistakes get included.
I only looked at the videos that were about eras/topics I know a bit about, historians specialised in costumes, architecture or other subjects will have spotted many more mistakes than the ones I just mentioned.
Historians specialised in other eras could probably write an article full about what they noticed in those videos as well.
I’ve only mentioned the tip of the iceberg here.
Feel free to share the errors you spotted in the comments.
Anything that helps people learn history and become interested in the subject, is a good thing.
It looks like AI won’t be going away anytime soon and of course people are going to make use of it.
But as also goes for film, tv & games: it is important that creators try to make what they show the public as historically accurate as possible.
Little mistakes are easily made and although they may seem harmless, it is mistakes like these that were perhaps shown once in a book or claimed by a mad Victorian, that are now believed by millions and that historians have been trying to defeat for decades, sometimes centuries.
Truth matters.
I will review more AI videos just like I review film, tv, games, etc.
You’ll find them here:
https://fakehistoryhunter.net/2022/11/14/my-reviews/
Fake History Hunter 