AI-Fueled Jokes Pervading Italian Youth Culture: Mysterious Humor that Baffles Adults, Known Among Youngsters
The Italian Brainrot meme, an internet sensation that originated in early 2025, has captivated audiences worldwide with its surreal, AI-generated characters and absurd, often vulgar, Italian-inspired names. This meme, with its roots partly in similar European memes, has rapidly spread beyond Italy to the US, Russia, Germany, and even as far as Indonesia.
The meme began with characters like Tralalero Tralala, an athletic shark with blue Nike shoes, themed around a ranting audio clip with blasphemous Italian speech created by a TikTok user (@eZburger401). This initial content mixed humor with controversial religious mockery, leading to bans and criticisms for perceived Islamophobic content and insensitivity to real-world tragedies.
Among the various popular figures that emerged from or alongside the Italian Brainrot meme, Tung Tung Tung Sahur stands out as a culturally significant and distinctly Indonesian-brainrot-inspired AI character. Unlike the Italian origins, Tung Tung Tung Sahur is a viral AI meme character modeled after the kentongan—a traditional Indonesian wooden drum used to wake people for sahur, the pre-dawn meal during Ramadan. The character is a drum-headed humanoid holding a stick or bat and is characterized by ominously repeating “Tung Tung Tung… Sahur.”
The Indonesian origin of Tung Tung Tung Sahur is tied to a TikTok creator named Noxa (@noxaasht), who used AI-assisted video editing to create this figure inspired by the ritual drum sounds of sahur. Noxa, a content creator based in Indonesia and under 20 years old, intended the character to have deeper meaning beyond being just a joke, reflecting cultural traditions through a meme format, though some cultural subtleties are lost on global audiences.
Other notable meme characters from this broader brainrot trend include Ballerina Capuccina, a glitched ballerina figure representing meme royalty that complements Tung Tung Tung Sahur’s horror-comedy vibe.
The meme’s cultural significance lies in its blend of AI creativity, folklore, and dark humor—a fusion that both mocks and transforms traditional motifs into hyper-surreal internet phenomena. In Indonesia, Tung Tung Tung Sahur merges religious practice and myth with meme culture, creating a new kind of digital folklore. In Italy and elsewhere, Italian Brainrot critiques and satirizes cultural elements through absurdist, often irreverent, AI-driven art.
Noxa, now represented by Mementum Lab, a Paris-based collective of artists, lawyers, and researchers, continues to create fast, overstimulated, AI-assisted videos. A "multi-level marketing economy" has emerged around Italian Brainrot, with AI video-makers targeting the audience through online ads or merchandise sales. Even a seven-year-old Indonesian child enjoys watching Italian Brainrot, often shouting phrases like "Bombardino Crocodilo" at his mother.
This meme format exemplifies how modern internet culture uses AI to reinvent folkloric and cultural symbols into fast-spreading viral content with complex, layered meanings. It serves as a testament to the power of AI and the internet in shaping contemporary culture and transforming traditional forms of expression into global phenomena.
- The cultural significance of the Italian Brainrot meme extends beyond Italy, with Indonesian-inspired characters like Tung Tung Tung Sahur disrupting conventional meme trends and creating new forms of digital folklore.
- The meme's merger of AI creativity, folklore, and dark humor has led to a unique blend that both mocks and transforms traditional motifs into surreal internet sensations, such as Ballerina Capuccina's striking ballerina figure.
- In stark contrast to the controversial content initially associated with Italian Brainrot, Tung Tung Tung Sahur, inspired by traditional Indonesian drum sounds, aims to reflect cultural traditions through a meme format, albeit some cultural nuances may be lost on global audiences.
- With the emergence of a "multi-level marketing economy" surrounding the meme, AI video-makers exploit online ads and merchandise sales to target audiences, appealing to even young children like the seven-year-old Indonesian who enjoys shouting Italian Brainrot phrases at his mother.
