"Ruff & Adams: Sabres’ Winless Streak Was a Wake‑Up Call"

As any long-suffering Buffalo Sabres fan knows, following the team closely during its 14-years-and-counting playoff drought might not be good for a person’s health.

So it looked like great news last month when a commercial appeared that was promoting a medication that could help: Droughtiva.

These new pills block the brain’s “hope receptors.” Side effects include “flashbacks to 2011” − and those cursed Philadelphia Flyers winning a playoff series in seven games − “irrational confidence after a three-game win streak” and “nightmares of former players lifting the cup.”

Sadly, just like hopes for a return to postseason glory for the Sabres, the ad is a joke.

The skit’s creator, who used artificial intelligence to create the ad and who runs the WNYorker account on Facebook, is very real. But he would like to remain anonymous.

A Western New York native and aerospace and medical parts manufacturer has cultivated the account since 2019 as a one-man operation, spending a few hours every week creating Bills and Sabres content with the use of artificial intelligence.

“We all love the same types of things. We eat the same food, we go to the same things, we root for the same teams,” he said. “I don’t want Western New Yorker to be attached to my face; I want it to be attached to our community.”

Graphic design has been his passion, but he says he isn’t a professional and that AI is a way for him to bridge that gap.

The “Droughtiva” skit took 3½ to 4 hours, including all of the brainstorming, audio, music and images. Third-party software created the bare bones of the skit, and in-house processors upscale them.

The name, “Droughtiva,” did come from him. (A close runner-up name was “Rebuildra.”)

All content on the WNYorker account, including the commercial, is entirely AI, but he says it doesn’t mean it’s “AI slop,” referring to an internet slang term meant to criticize low-quality AI images. It takes hours to manually edit and work the media through Photoshop, he said.

“I think people get distracted by the whole AI thing and whether it’s AI or not or fake,” he said. “‘Did you enjoy the content?’ is really what you should be asking.”

The skit does poke fun at the Sabres, especially the team’s 14-year playoff drought.

“Everyone’s heard the phrase, ‘Laughter is the best medicine,’ and I think there’s a lot of truth to that,” he said. “Our team is not good, and if the team’s going to be a joke, I think maybe we should provide the punch lines.”

But he continues to root for the Sabres, just as much as he roots for the Bills.

“I want the teams to succeed. Sometimes when you’re running a page, people like to stay objective or neutral,” he said. “I’m not like that at all. I want both teams to be awesome.”