The Italian Brain Rot Ren-AI-ssance, Explained
Is this my “Old Man Yells at (Digital) Cloud” moment? Gone are the days when our memes are all man-made. Just a couple years ago, the internet’s favorite absurd animals were photoshopped images of a strawberry elephant or a Smurf cat. Now, AI-generated memes are freely roaming the barren internet wasteland. Perhaps you’ve seen a man-on-the-street quiz where someone is asked to identify a series of AI characters and starts rattling off vaguely Italian-sounding names like Tralalero Tralala, Bombardiro Crocodilo, and Brr Brr Patapim? (“I’ve been unemployed for, like, two months,” the star of one such viral quizzes said after earning a perfect score.) These characters are part of a phenomenon known as “Italian brain rot,” which is only getting more mainstream; on May 21, The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon posted a video of Ballerina star Ana de Armas set to a “Ballerina Cappuccina mi mi mi mi” audio.
Even if it hasn’t infected your “For You” page yet, the latest iteration of Italian brain rot has been around for roughly half a year. Below, as much sense as we can make about the AI slop the internet can’t stop sopping up, from why certain characters are considered problematic to how this all connects back to Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson.
First of all, what is brain rot?
Well, the publishers of the Oxford Dictionary named it 2024’s word of the year, so why don’t we consult the dictionary? Officially, “brain rot” is defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.”
In other words, it’s the type of low-quality, often-incoherent content on the internet that makes you wonder if you’re destroying your brain cells just by watching it. The term is most often associated with Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who have popularized some of the most famous examples of brain rot (see: the word “skibidi” and the entire Skibidi Toilet universe). America has contributed its fair share to the brain-rot canon; John Pork was dying in memes as early as 2023.
Okay, so what is Italian brain rot?
While Italy does have different types of brain-rot memes, the phrase is currently being used to refer to the country’s most famous example of brain rot: an ever-expanding group of surreal AI animals who are introduced by nonsensical (and sometimes offensive) text-to-speech audios. There are more than a hundred of these characters to date. The vast majority of them are anthropomorphized hybrid animals, though there are exceptions, such as living coffee cups Ballerina Cappuccina and Cappuccino Assassino. Since anyone with access to AI can contribute, it’s even possible for there to be two different versions of a single character: Trippi Troppi is sometimes depicted as a fish with a bear’s body and sometimes as a cat with a shrimp’s body.
Where did Italian brain rot come from?
We can actually trace it back to a series of Italian memes centered on Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson that were popular in 2023. In these brain-rot videos, a text-to-speech voice makes the actor tell nonsensical, outrageous stories that often involve poop and a mysterious character simply known as Burger, often over the dramatic instrumental of Tupac’s “Time Back.” These audios are also typically packed with tongue twisters and rhymes. For example, in one October 2023 meme, the Rock says, “Tralalero tralala” and then rhymes it with “smerdo pure nell’aldilà,” which roughly translates to, “I shit even in the afterlife.” In September 2024, the TikTok account @burgermerda (“burger shit” in English) created another such meme of the Rock set to an audio that rhymes the words “tralalero tralala” with a controversial, blasphemous phrase. The sound was removed, but it was later re-uploaded by @eZburger401, another dedicated meme poster of the Rock. At the start of 2025, however, the audio began trending in a totally different context. TikTok user @elchino1246 used the audio to post a Photoshopped image of a shark with seagull legs on January 8. The concept really started taking off once since-deleted user @iamtralalelotralalahot (display name kevinxhs) used the sound to post an AI-generated image of a shark wearing blue Nike sneakers. The internet decided that Tralalero Tralala was this shark’s name, and the character went so viral that an entire AI animal kingdom of surreal creatures was generated afterward. Just like the memes of the Rock, the audio that introduces the character is often a nonsensical story, typically narrated over a dramatic instrumental by the text-to-speech “Adam” AI voice from ElevenLabs.
Why are some of the Italian-brain-rot characters controversial?
The audio associated with Tralalero Tralala, originally taken from that meme of the Rock, has been criticized as sacrilegious. Now, the words “tralalero tralala” are not offensive on their own. Italian commenters have explained that the phrase doesn’t really have a meaning, though it carries a singsongy connotation and can be used to add an air of sarcasm or childishness to a sentence. (This is definitely not an exact equivalent, but as an English speaker, it makes me think of the phrase “na-na-na boo-boo,” which means something but not in a way where “na” and “boo” have distinct meanings.) But what was said afterward has been upsetting to many religious people. To complete the rhyme, the next phrase in the audio is “porco Dio e porco Allah,” which roughly translates to “pig God, pig Allah.” (The speaker then goes on to rant about their shitty son playing Minecraft.) Many religious people who are not fluent in Italian who laughed at the meme or even repeated the words felt that they were tricked into blasphemy.
Meanwhile, Bombardiro Crocodilo — a crocodile crossed with a military aircraft — has a backstory that controversially nods at real-life tragedy; Bombardiro’s viral audio explains that the character doesn’t believe in Allah and is flying to drop bombs on children in Gaza and Palestine. At least one lengthier version of the sound ends with an instruction in Italian not to translate the audio and ruin the “joke,” which appears to just be that people are not aware of what’s being said. Basically, this is the internet version of the type of person who finds it hilarious to teach non-native speakers curse words, insults, or offensive language but claims that they’re innocent phrases.
As Italian brain rot has gotten more popular (and less Italian), trending audios for new characters seem to have shifted away from this type of offensive content. New audios have even been generated to make Tralalero Tralala and Bombardiro Crocodilo apologize. Still, for some people, the knowledge that these audios were part of the roots of Italian brain rot makes the entire phenomenon feel rotten.
Are all the Italian-brain-rot characters Italian?
Okay, so, no. One of the more popular so-called Italian-brain-rot characters — Tung Tung Tung Sahur, full name Tung Tung Tung Tung Tung Tung Tung Tung Tung Sahur — is actually an Indonesian creation. He’s an anthropomorphic night-patrol drum, and “tung tung tung” is onomatopoeia to mimic the sound of drumming. The majority of Indonesia’s population is Muslim, and drumming can be used to call people to wake up for Sahur, a meal eaten before dawn during Ramadan. The viral audio associated with his character explains that if you ignore the drum call three times, Tung Tung Tung Sahur and his baseball bat will come for you. No part of the audio is in Italian, but he is often included in Italian-brain-rot rankings.
Not all brain-rot characters are Italian-passing, though. Vietnam has also embraced this trending format with AI characters, but you’re less likely to see its brain rot being grouped with the Italian characters. It seems like honorary Italian status might just be reserved for the characters who go megaviral … or maybe Bánh Mì Ram Ram is just way too Vietnamese to be mistaken for anything else.
Is there lore for the Italian-brain-rot characters?
Yes. Of course, there’s a limit to how consistent lore can be when anyone with access to AI can contribute, but there have been some general trends. In April, several viral videos depicted the Italian-brain-rot characters getting arrested one by one as an audio that declared, “Noooo, la polizia!” You might also see people discussing the relative power of these characters; there’s a reason that you can find Italian-brain-rot-fight compilations on YouTube. Some accounts have been posting videos that attempt to explain how all these characters are connected. TikTok user @italian.brainrot.tv, for example, is one of the leading accounts that posts videos where an English text-to-speech voice talks about characters falling in love or fighting or cheating on each other. Ballerina Cappuccina regularly features as a love interest or mother in these videos. Meanwhile, characters from other AI-brain-rot universes, such as Simon Claw and Tim Cheese, have headed to Italy for crossover encounters.
Just how popular is Italian brain rot?
Italian brain rot has now been memorialized in original songs and musical remixes of the text-to-speech audios. Some people have even been bumping brain-rot playlists. And in a reliable sign of success in the year 2025, there are also plenty of efforts to try to capitalize off the viral moment and make money. Likenesses of these characters are being sold as toys by online vendors on Amazon and Walmart, and people across generations have their names and faces down by heart. There’s already an Italian-brain-rot cryptocurrency (and various NFTs for sale), and some brands are even Photoshopping the characters into their posts. And while Michael Bay has insisted that those reports that he’s making a Skibidi Toilet movie should be flushed down the drain, that doesn’t mean that everyone has given up on the idea of a brain-rot movie — and there’s an unofficial trailer that imagines the Italian-brain-rot characters on the big screen to prove it.
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