While sitting in the office, I sometimes look out the window blankly, reminiscing about taking a week off and going on an exotic vacation with my friends. Away from all the calls, social media, and Slack messages. But in the midst of a busy life, such trips often feel like a far-fetched dream.
Turns out, I am not alone; there’s a whole generation struggling through the same yearning. While many can’t take that expensive trip in real life, users are turning to a new viral app called Endless Summer to make it possible, at least digitally.
Endless Summer Takes You Everywhere Without Going Anywhere
Endless Summer is an app that creates AI-generated vacation photos of you taking those much-needed summer breaks you have been dreaming of. It’s a side project by Product Designer Laurent Del Rey, who works at Meta Superintelligence Lab.
Del Rey describes it as something for, “when burnout hits and you need to manifest the soft life u deserve – with fake vacation pics of you :’)” as he wrote in his X post.
This sums up the app perfectly. It allows you to picture yourself doing things in places you probably can’t visit yet, while portraying a lavish lifestyle on social media. And the images it creates are hyper-realistic, which could be why it is getting so viral.
All you have to do is click a selfie, and Endless Summer will use Google’s Gemini Nano Banana to churn out a hyper-realistic photo of you, sipping coffee on the coastline of Greece, or carrying shopping bags in fashionable clothing in New York. The app has also received a new Halloween update to generate images of you, enjoying Halloween parties around the world.
How Does It Actually Feel Like Using Endless Summer?
I tried it out myself, and with some office colleagues to see their reactions, and it ranged from meh to excited, to feeling upset about why they can’t be the one in the photo, rather than seeing their AI self enjoying the trip they always wanted to go on. The images, I must say, looked really good, granted that you have taken the selfie properly.
The images have a sort of retro, summer sunshine vibe to them, like they were taken from a vintage camera. It adds warmth to the photos, making you feel like these are memories you have lived through rather than AI-generated images. Maybe that’s the idea behind Endless Summer, not to feel the FOMO (fear of missing out), but to get nostalgic about a moment that never happened.
Weirdly, the app seems obsessed with generating photos of you using your phone while it’s plugged in. Maybe it is an allegory for this generation’s obsession with their phones and being incessantly online. It also occasionally botches text, like it did for the bakery behind the man in France.
I should point out that only the first 3 image generations are free. After that, it asks you to pay to generate more photos. The plan ranges from $3.99 to make 30 images, $17.99 for 150, and $34.99 for 300.
Why This AI Escape is Getting Real and Popular?
You can save your fake vacation photos by long-pressing the image and sharing to Instagram to make your friends envious, or give a glimpse of a life that could have been. It’s escapism at its finest, and there’s no denying it. But the popularity it is gaining, especially from people in tier 2 and tier 3 cities across India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, is insane.
People are using Endless Summer to manifest a life they can’t afford or live yet. But there could be a positive element to this. Maybe it could serve as motivation to manifest these scenic images into real experiences someday. Or at the very least, it gets you some attention and likes on your Instagram Stories.
At a time when there is a lot of talk about escaping the Matrix, apps like these make me feel like we are only diving deeper into it. I can’t see the image of myself on Endless Summer and feel genuinely happy because as beautiful as it looks, I would like to enjoy the experience of being there physically.
