Is the top image AI slop? It feels like it, and it makes me wary about reading past the TL;DR...

How are you not sure?

There are many inconsistencies in the picture: the feet with no bank face, the randomness of having hands or not for the banks drinking beers, how some of tbose beers are incorrectly held, the magic bottom half-torso on the left side, the hand-held pen-rocket launcher squirted red ink, how that is held in the driver's hand.

I'd say it's worth a read, if only to get to the $200 bit.

Having a visual thumbnail is extraordinarily important for clickthrough rate on social media platforms which support them, which is most these days. I don’t think you should prejudge articles for doing what they’ve gotta do to get readers.