Wait—Is Steve Carell a Hypebeast Now?
In the year 2026, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between an AI-generated image and your regular, run-of-the-mill iPhone photo. Such was the case with a captionless, and subsequently deleted, Instagram post shared on Monday by a blue-check verified account that appeared to belong to actor Steve Carell. In a pair of nearly identical yet slightly different images, he’s standing with his arms crossed in front of a Mercedes-Maybach parked at a QuikTrip gas station—and he’s drenched in hypebeast drip.
In the viral images posted to the now-defunct @stevecarellofficial account, the actor appears to be wearing a pair of white tattooed sweatpants from Balenciaga, a Gucci monogram puffer jacket, a crocheted kitty-eared beanie from the small knitwear brand Arkyve (which has been worn by the likes of Justin Bieber, Drake, and Kai Cenat), and an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph in rose gold, bumping this theoretical outfit’s value to upwards of $65,000. (Which, some might argue, sounds like a standard base salary for a salesman at a mid-sized regional paper company.) Fans in the comments made reference to Prison Mike, the problematic, purple-bandana-wearing jailbird persona sometimes embodied by Michael Scott, Carell’s screwball character from The Office. As one commenter wrote: “Regional Manager at Dunder Drip-lin.”
The images were quickly reshared across social media, including on Complex’s popular X account to the tune of over 23,000 likes. On Instagram, both Complex and the hat brand, Arkyve, clarified in their captions that the images were AI-generated and based on a fit pic by a popular Twitch streamer named Clarence White.
White himself commented under the original post on the dubious Carell account, suggesting that it referenced a photo of his—in which the streamer can be seen standing in a similar outfit in front of Mercedes-Maybach parked at a QuikTrip—except that White’s photos show some minor differences. Besides postural and angular variances, White is wearing a logo-covered jacket from Balenciaga, not Gucci. Additionally, in the two @stevecarellofficial images, his watch strap changes slightly from one to the next—a common AI slip-up. The promotional signs at the gas pump, too, are structurally the same as the ones in White’s photo at a quick glance, but their contents vary upon closer inspection: one promotes a 99-cent combo, while the other advertises a 59% discount on the same items. All of which is to say, this is most likely the work of artificial intelligence. (White did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
As of Tuesday afternoon, the original post as well as the @stevecarellofficial account—whether or not either was ever real in the first place—appear to have been removed from Instagram. That being said, if 63-year-old Carell were to randomly pivot his persona towards that of a hypebeast streamer who sources his clothes from TikTok Shop, we would welcome him with open arms.
