Concealing Communalism Behind Quirky Creatures: AI Memes, Humour and "Brainrot".

Ping! You’ve got another meme for your collection. Except this one has an ulterior motive!

Modern human culture and society would be inconceivable without humour, especially with memes and the convenience of our smartphones, one need not recite a joke, but can rather, generate one from a plethora of meme templates. These are largely accessible, convenient and universally appealing, with a large variety to choose from! However, memes and humour aren’t simply formulistic- there are instances where the humour behind a meme is difficult to describe. In other words, absurdism is once again, at the apex in the purview of humour- and it’s all because of generative AI.

The Meme Theory

The usage of AI in the creation and dissemination of memes is not an uncommon occurrence. Prior to this recent upsurge, several netizens had utilised Luma Dream Machine, an AI model that converts source images into high-quality video representations. It did not take the internet much time to feed memes into this software and the results were rather strange to say the least. The “Distracted Boyfriend” meme which had earlier depicted a man staring at another woman while walking with his girlfriend, now involved the man chasing after the other woman. Meanwhile, the “Girl behind Fire” meme had shifted its focus from the smiling girl to the distant firefighters in the image. These creations only seemed to generate humour owing to the existing iconic nature of these memes. Netizens had naturally found these absurdist reinterpretations to be delectable. 

Despite the Luma Dream Machine fiasco, there were no other major instances where generative AI was used for generating memes for quite some time until a new surge of AI “brainrot” had emerged- Italian brainrot. While the epithet is rather ambiguous, the term “Italian brainrot” is used to refer to a collection of AI-generated images depicting the amalgamation of animals and ordinary inanimate objects to create an absurd being accompanied by AI text-to-speech dialogue with a comical Italian accent. To the common man, these memes are quite complex owing to the layers that constitute their humour. Generation Z and the current internet has always held a fascination for surreal creations, and humour today requires no explanation or significance to appeal to the masses. It is no surprise that the digital community had found an undying interest in Lirili Larila, an elephant wearing sandals, and Ballerina Cappucina, a ballerina with a coffee mug for a head. The names of these creatures tend to be alliterations, and generally reflect the cadence of the Italian language without necessarily being Italian words. The dialogue that typically follows these creatures are nonsensical, deriving their hilarity from the male text-to-speech rather than the content. However, most connoisseurs of “Italian Brainrot” are either not Italian themselves or are unaware of the intricacies of the language. As a result, not many are aware of the fact that the dialogue associated with these memes are not mere absurdities, but are rather, communalistic ideologies. 

Lirili Larila

Masking Ideology as “Slop”

It is not uncommon for memes to become the hallmarks of right-wing extremist groups, and 4Chan was proof of that. Pepe the Frog and Soyjaks have been the most widely utilised memes within these right-wing extremist communities, with the former being particularly controversial with its association with the US President, Trump. It is perhaps because of the communicable and customisable nature of these images that they can seep and mold themselves into any community and the actors associated with them. 

As far as “Italian Brainrot” is concerned, despite the unassuming depictions of the caricatures, the dialogues accompanying them seem to conceal communalist, particularly Islamophobic sentiments behind a particularly complex language and accessibility barrier. It is precisely due to the fact that most people do not understand Italian as a language or linguistic system, and that several netizens find it difficult to comprehend text-to-speech dialogue in the first place, that these memes can be disseminated without censorship.

Taking the example of Bombardino Crocodilo, A crocodile bomber-plane, the translated description of the meme discusses “Bombing” innocent civilians in Gaza amidst a string of expletives, particularly attacking Islam. Tralalero Tralala follows a similar approach by referencing Allah- the Islamic God- and a pig in the same  context. It is quite tedious to trace the creation of these memes back to a singular person, and consequently, no frequent user of these memes will feign responsibility for communalistic tendencies- and that is precisely one of the major issues pertinent with the dissemination of comedic content on the internet- the lack of accountability and the reduction of sensitive topics and identity discourses to “dark humour”. 

An Era of Low-Quality Humour

Unfortunately, as the internet has evolved, or rather, devolved, we have gotten more accustomed to consuming short-form content rather than long-form ones. These short-form content tend to provide more stimulants than we require, making long periods of consumption more palatable. The newer generations tend to thrive off of content that is instantaneous and surreal, especially those that they deem as humorous. Additionally, brainrot suffers from the added concern of regurgitation as those familiar with these concepts tend to overuse them in otherwise professional settings such as a classroom. While this is more common in children, it is still largely concerning to see academics adopting their pedagogical practices to accommodate these humorous terminologies to better appeal to a younger audience. This was not entirely the first instance of AI brainrot taking over the internet- especially with the “Skibidi Toilet” that was overwhelmingly prominent in the past two years.

When people have gone as far as to refer to these generative content as “slop”, perhaps we ought to come to the understanding that this form of content has overwhelmingly desensitised our moral and intellectual palates. Anything which is available in excess has ineffably trivialised our already-deficit attention spans. This postmodern form of engagement bait has unfortunately contributed to the decay of these social networking platforms. Would one treat with seriousness a YouTube Shorts video discussing Tralalero Tralala’s role in a fight compared to a well-developed video essay or vlog that the platform was earlier known for? Moreover, with every social networking site offering its own short-form content module (YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, etc.), it has undoubtedly become easier to disseminate low-quality content. Comedy is one of those genres that the internet has already mastered in the realm of short-form content, whether it be through Vine or Tiktok. However, with AI coming into the picture, it is less about the content and effort, and more about the absurdity of the comedic effect.

Conclusion

Regardless of our personal interests and preferences, algorithms will continue to sustain users with what the majority seeks to view for entertainment- regardless of the effort or ethics involved in its composition. However, as far as AI “slop” is concerned, there is only so much that algorithms can curate. We continue to dig ourselves deeper into the trenches of content paralysis through constant exposure and engagement with this form of “humour”. Overstimulation has always been a political tool to stunt intellectual discourse- and it has only gotten worse!