It’s regular to “view the thing the newest generation is doing with fear and suspicion,” she stated, pointing to how previous generations have had comparable considerations concerning the detrimental results of comedian books, tv and even novels at one time.
Considerations about mind rot — that it’s unproductive and pointless — truly reveal an amazing deal about their enchantment, Owens stated. Mind rot is an acute rejection of the extreme pressures on younger folks to self-optimize.
“It’s very normal for everyone to need to switch their brains off now and again,” she stated.
Within the first half of 2025, she racked up over 55 million views on TikTok and 4 million likes, largely from tweens glued to their cellphones. Not unhealthy for an AI-generated cartoon ballerina with a cappuccino teacup for a head.
Her title is Ballerina Cappuccina. Her smiling, girlish face is accompanied by a deep, computer-generated male voice singing in Italian — or, at the least, some Italian. The remainder is gibberish.
She is among the most distinguished characters within the web phenomenon referred to as “Italian Brain Rot,” a sequence of memes that exploded in recognition this yr, consisting of unrealistic AI-generated animal-object hybrids with absurdist, pseudo-Italian narration.
The development has baffled dad and mom, to the delight of younger folks experiencing the joys of a brand new, fleeting cultural signifier that’s illegible to older generations.
Consultants and followers alike say the development is value being attentive to, and tells us one thing concerning the youngest era of tweens.
A nonsensical, AI-generated realm
The primary Italian brain-rot character was Tralalero Tralala, a shark with blue Nike sneakers on his elongated fins. Early Tralalero Tralala movies had been scored with a curse-laden Italian track that seems like a crude nursery rhyme.
Different characters quickly emerged: Bombardiro Crocodilo, a crocodile-headed navy airplane; Lirilì Larilà, an elephant with a cactus physique and slippers; and Armadillo Crocodillo, an armadillo inside a coconut, to call a number of.
Content material creators all over the world have created complete storylines informed by deliberately ridiculous songs. These movies have confirmed so fashionable that they’ve launched catchphrases which have entered mainstream tradition for Era Alpha, which describes anybody born between 2010 and 2025.
Fabian Mosele, 26, calls themselves an “Italian brain rot connoisseur.” An Italian animator who lives in Germany and works with AI by commerce, Mosele created their first Italian brain-rot content material in March. Shortly after, Mosele’s video of Italian brain-rot characters at an underground rave garnered about 1,000,000 views in a single day, they stated. It has since topped 70 million.
Even because the hysteria over the absurdist subgenre has slowed, Mosele stated the characters have transcended the digital realm and turn out to be an indelible half of popular culture.
“It feels so ephemeral,” Mosele stated, “but it also feels so real.”
This summer time, one of the fashionable video games on Roblox, the free on-line platform that has roughly 111 million month-to-month customers, was referred to as “Steal a Brainrot.” The objective of the sport, because the title would counsel, is to steal mind rot characters from different gamers. Extra fashionable characters, like Tralalero Tralala, are value extra in-game cash.
Generally, the video games’ directors — who’re additionally gamers — cheat to steal the characters, a transfer referred to as “admin abuse” that despatched many children and youths right into a frenzy. One video of a younger baby hysterically crying over a stolen character has 46.8 million views on TikTok.
It’s not alleged to make sense
Within the non-virtual world, some have made bodily toy replicas of the characters, whereas others have created real-life performs that includes them.
The nonsensical songs have at instances gestured to real-world points: One clip of Bombardiro Crocodilo sparked outrage for seemingly mocking the conflict in Gaza.
However in the end, nearly all of movies are foolish and absurd.
Mosele stated Italian brain-rot shoppers largely don’t care about how the photographs relate to what’s being stated or sung. They usually don’t even care to translate the nonsensical Italian to English.
“It’s funny because it’s nonsense,” Mosele stated.
“Seeing something so dark, in a way, and out of the ordinary, that breaks all the norms of what we would expect to see on TV — that’s just super appealing.”
The rise of mind rot
Italian mind rot didn’t go viral in a vacuum. “Brain rot,” the 2024 Oxford College Press phrase of the yr, is outlined because the numbing of an mental state ensuing from the “overconsumption of trivial or unchallenging material.”
It can be used to explain the brain-rotting content material itself.
Plenty of content material falls into that class. Contemplate movies of the sport “Subway Surfer” split-screened subsequent to full episodes of tv exhibits, or “Skibidi Toilet,” an animated sequence that includes bathrooms with human heads coming out of their bowls.
These not chronically on-line would possibly instinctively recoil on the time period mind rot, with its vaguely gory connotations, particularly as concern concerning the potential harms of social media for adolescents mounts.
When mind rot was topped phrase of the yr, Oxford Languages President Casper Grathwohl stated the time period speaks to “one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.”
Emilie Owens, 33, a youngsters’s media researcher, agreed that limitless scrolling poses risks for younger folks. However she stated that the priority about mind rot is misguided.
It’s regular to “view the thing the newest generation is doing with fear and suspicion,” she stated, pointing to how previous generations have had comparable considerations concerning the detrimental results of comedian books, tv and even novels at one time.
Considerations about mind rot — that it’s unproductive and pointless — truly reveal an amazing deal about their enchantment, Owens stated. Mind rot is an acute rejection of the extreme pressures on younger folks to self-optimize.
“It’s very normal for everyone to need to switch their brains off now and again,” she stated.
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