I Think My Face Was Deepfaked Into a Chinese Camping Stove Ad

It was 6:28 am when I woke up to a text from a friend in Shanghai, China. “Hey, Amanda—is this you?” he wrote via WeChat. I hadn’t even had my morning coffee yet. I pulled my phone closer to get a better look. While scrolling through Taobao, a Chinese marketplace owned by Alibaba, my friend came across an ad for a camping stove. It was like looking in a mirror—I saw my Puerto Rican mother’s long eyelashes and distinct jawline, my father’s prominent Austrian nose, and my abuela’s long hands....