10-08-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
How Indonesia's AI-generated ‘Italian brainrot' memes conquered Gen Z
In a
Japanese shop selling pocket-money trinkets, there is a rack of toys, stickers and keyrings based on a global crew of
AI -generated characters that almost every child knows about – and very few adults.
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A walking shark in oversized trainers, an orange with muscular arms and a twirling 'Ballerina Cappuccina' with a mug for a head are among the strange stars of the online phenomenon called Italian Brainrot.
'At first it's not funny at all, but it kind of grows on you,' said Yoshi Yamanaka-Nebesney, a 16-year-old from New York.
'You might use it to annoy someone and find that funny.'
The name nods to the stupefying effect of scrolling through mindless
social media posts, especially over-the-top images created with artificial intelligence tools.
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Shouty, crude and often nonsensical
Italian voice-overs feature in many of the clips made by people in various countries that began to spread this year on platforms such as
TikTok , embraced by young
Gen Z and
Gen Alpha members.
