Interactive Narrative
History of a Meme
"Italian Brainrot" refers to a recent meme of AI generated images of animals, which are usually combined with objects like planes, coconuts, cacti, or are given anthropomorphic features such as legs and feet. The video's of several prominent creations have been shared around on platforms like TikTok, and are usually accompanied by a AI text-to-speech rhyming the character's names with absurd statements, almost always in Italian.
The memes started in early 2025, where a TikTok of "Tralalero Tralala", a shark wearing Air Jordan sneakers.
Tralalero Tralala:
The trend followed with "Bombardino Crocodilo", a military bomber plane with a crocodile face, "Lirili Larila", a cactus elephant walking in the desert with flippers, and Brr Brr Patapim, a proboscis-monkey tree with enormous feet.
Bombardino Crocodilo:
Lirili Larila:
Brr Brr Patapim:
Now, the videos have inspired many other animals and creations, and are featured all across the internet in various types of content and videos. The Itialian videos have inspired others in several other languages, most notably in Indonesean with "Tung tung tung sahur", a wooden stick carrying a baseball bat. The images are refered to as "brainrot", as they are AI creations and completely lack any meaning, existing simply to be a funny image.