Italian Brainrot

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Italian brainrot is a series of surrealist Internet memes that emerged in early 2025 characterized by absurd photos of AI-generated creatures with pseudo-Italian names.^[1]^[2] The phenomenon quickly spread across social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, owing to its combination of synthesized "Italian" voiceovers, grotesque, funny visuals, and nonsensical narrative.^[3]

Description

Italian brainrot is characterized by absurd images or videos created by generative artificial intelligence. It typically features hybrids of animals with everyday objects, food, and weapons.^[4] They are given Italianized names or use stereotypical cultural markers and are accompanied by AI-generated audio of an Italian man's narration, which is often nonsensical.^[5] These characters combine elements of surrealism, visual anxiety (uncanny valley) and internet irony, reflecting the post-ironic humor of Generation Z.^[3]

The term brain rot was Oxford's Word of the Year in 2024, and refers to the deteriorating effect on one's mental state when overconsuming "trivial or unchallenging content" online. It can also to refer to the content itself.^[6] Online users often use this label to acknowledge the ridiculousness of Italian brainrot, while recognising the growing amount of AI slop present online.^[5]

Italian brainrot was first popularized on TikTok with the character Tralalero Tralala, who was created on 13 January 2025.^[2] Its original video's creator, whose username was @eZburger401, has since deleted their account. The first user known to popularize the characters was @noxaasht, creator of Tung Tung Tung Sahur.^[7]^[8] Italian brainrot gained notoriety in March 2025, spreading to Indonesia, the United States, and Europe.^[9] Brands have replicated the memes for use in marketing content,^[3]^[10] and they has also inspired a variety of highly volatile meme coins.^[11]^[12]

Characters

Italian brainrot features various AI-generated characters. The first viral character of the genre was Tralalero Tralala, a three-legged shark in Nike sneakers often depicted jumping or fighting a hybrid creature with the head of a crocodile and the body of a World War II-era twin-engine bomber known as Bombardino Crocodilo.^[1]^[2]^[5]

Tung Tung Tung Sahur is an anthropomorphic wooden object resembling an Indian club or bedug drum and holding a baseball bat. Although often claimed or mistaken as a popular part of Italian brainrot, it has Indonesian origin – the Tung Tung Tung in its name is an onomatopoeia of how Indonesians traditionally beat drums to commence suhur, the pre-dawn meal that Muslims eat before fasting during Ramadan.^[13] The character was originally made by @noxaasht in February 2025 and has become its own meme.^[8]^[14] In May 2025, Indonesian production house Dee Company [id] suggested making a film based on it.^[15]

Ballerina Cappuccina is a ballerina wearing a tutu and pointe shoes albeit with a cappuccino mug as a head, emphasizing the absurdity of the genre by combining the incompatible: an everyday object and a classical dance image.^[2] The original meme featured her pirouetting gracefully.^[16] Other characters include Boneca Ambalabu, an anthropromorhic tree frog with human legs and the body of a car tire of Indonesian origin. Lirili Larila, a bipedal cactus-elephant hybrid wearing sandals; and Frigo Camelo, a camel with a refrigerator for a body and large boots on its feet.^[2]^[17]

Controversy

Tralalero Tralala and Bombardino Crocodilo memes have been accused of being Islamophobic, as lyrics of the former's video mock Allah in Italian^[a] although some Italian users have pointed out that it is merely generic blasphemy.^[18] Meanwhile, Bombardino Crocodilo has been criticized for making light of the Gaza genocide, since some videos use audio which describes the character's "bombing raids" targeting children in Gaza and the rest of Palestine.^[5]^[18]