Earlier this year, somewhere between Trump’s inauguration and the AI reggae song “I Forgive That Man” reaching the viral charts in multiple European countries, a zoo of cursed creatures escaped and overran the internet. These included Tralalero Tralala, a three-legged shark with blue Nikes; Tung Tung Tung Sahur, an anthropomorphic wood plank; and Ballerina Cappuccina, a cup of golden-brown coffee in a pink bodice. An endless stream of shortform clips depict the characters eating burgers on the beach, cutting each other’s necks off, getting robbed on the L train in Chicago.
People call these deviants “Italian brainrot,” and it’s basically the Avengers multiverse of sloptainment. The Italian component comes from the text-to-speech voice that narrates the videos. One of the most popular clips features Tung Tung Tung Sahur moaning “nooo, oh oh,” as he’s held at gunpoint by police. It’s difficult to overstate just how popular this craze is with kids; a YouTube Short from last month in which Italian brainrot beasts are reprimanded for getting bad grades has 112 million views. Whenever I mention Brr Brr Patapim (imagine Groot if he were designed by Salvador Dali, not Stan Lee) to a fellow adult, they look baffled; meanwhile, all my younger brother’s college friends are tapped in.
Italian brainrot has the all-consuming virality of a “GANGNAM STYLE,” the type of cultural entity so powerful that anything vaguely themed after it amasses colossal engagement. Except unlike “GANGNAM STYLE,” barely anyone above the age of 20 knows what this is. In that way, it’s very 2020s: everywhere and nowhere, siloed by the algorithm but also monocultural for kids. Eleotan Táparo, the mastermind of a meme channel with 3.7 million subscribers, told me that Italian brainrot is like a stupid but satisfying TV show for the new generation. “I grew up watching Woody Woodpecker, Tom and Jerry—they were funny but also violent cartoons. And we turned out just great,” Táparo said. “I don’t know if brainrot videos are really brainrotting children or if it’s just a meme word right now.” I told him it’s more like SpongeBob—but it’s not really like either. There is no writer’s room orchestrating the narrative; it’s a democratized free-for-all where anyone can add new elements, storylines, and mutant mischief, which is both terrifying and thrilling.
Táparo, a 31-year-old from the Santa Catarina region of Brazil, is an early pioneer of Italian brainrot music, a burgeoning macro-genre that folds the cast of characters into songs for every possible vibe. Athletes can pump iron to “TRALALERO TRALALA FUNK,” a song with over 26 million Spotify streams that rewires the Italian text-to-speech voice into metallic phonk percussion. Beachgoers can lie in the sun while “HAVANA TRALALA” struts out of speakers. There’s “Brainrot Hogwarts Edition,” a parody of the Harry Potter theme with an enchanted voice chirruping “Cocofanto Elefanto!” (jubilant baby elephant encased in a coconut shell) like Hermione casting “Leviosaaaa.” The newest convolution is Italian Brainrot anime themes, popularized by creators like Smirzky, which turn the gibberish critters into cast members of a fictional TV show. It’s like the One Piece intro except Luffy is a butterfly-cat named Bicicletta del Gatto Santo.
Some of this is standard remix fare that spawns after every viral trend, but Italian brainrot has unleashed such a wide array of psychotic shitposting that it stands out in an age where most memes are ephemeral blips. Gazzarino, the self-described “king of Italian brainrot,” has over two million monthly listeners on Spotify off the back of brain-numbing Brr Brr Patapim-themed rap and pop remixes. Italian brainrot anthems infest Spotify Viral 50 charts across the world, from Denmark to Sweden to Peru to the Czech Republic. Argentina’s chart has two Italian brainrot songs in its top five. One is surprisingly infectious: “TUNG SAHUR — BRZT Session (Todos Quieren Tung!),” by the YouTuber FlippyLaRataGM, riffs on Argentinian producer Bizarrap’s freestyle sessions by turning the magic plank into a rapper with deliciously thwompy bass.
There isn’t much redeeming value in this music, something Táparo is well aware of. The first time he saw Italian brainrot, he thought it was “really, really dumb,” he said over a Discord call. “I’m, like, an idiot. I laugh about everything… I don’t think it’s nothing out of this world, nothing genius. It’s just dumb as hell. And that’s why it’s so good.” When Italian brainrot took off, he saw the opportunity to ride the viral wave. “Everything that becomes a meme, someday, somehow, will also become a music meme.”
While Táparo’s been making meme-inspired videos for ages, his most popular upload is from late April this year: ”COFFIN DANCE x TRALALERO TRALALA.” Over 39 million people have clicked on the video, which gives Italian brainrot icons suits and sunglasses and has them shoulder a coffin (the "coffin dance" was a 2020 trend involving a crew of Ghanaian pallbearers made famous by the BBC). The robotic TTS voice comes alive, warbling and twitching over a thumping dance beat. Táparo says he spends 15 to 25 hours on a typical video, which involves generating visuals, coming up with brainrot parody lyrics, and producing the music. He’ll either concoct the instrumental himself or if it’s in a genre outside of his wheelhouse, like K-pop (his edits include Kpop Demon Hunters’ “Your Idol” rewired with a voice trilling “Blueberrini Octopussini!”), he’ll sketch a beat and ask the AI audio generator Suno to expand it into a full track. He puts extra time into modulating vocals with the FL Studio plugin NewTone and punching up AI imagery in Photoshop. “I don’t really enjoy making something that I don’t think is quality. Even though it’s brainrot and it’s AI,” he chuckled. “I take time to refine the edges.”
As low-effort and lifeless as much of this music is, it’s obscenely popular. Táparo said YouTube is his full-time job and that he’s made nearly $100,000. Much of the audience is clearly children, the Gen Alpha tweens nursed on Cocomelon and Baby Shark hi-jinks. “A lot of the comments I receive are from kids,” Táparo says. “Children really, really like this brainrot thing.” Italian brainrot has wreaked havoc on YouTube Shorts and Roblox kiddie influencers. There’s a whole underbelly of religion-themed Italian brainrot quiz clips that prey on naive viewers, warning them not to listen to the TTS voice on 0.3x speed, insinuating that it’s demonic.
On many Italian brainrot clips—from music to marriage to mukbangs—the comments revolve around how fatally brain-smushed the younger generation is. The kids watching the slop know how sloppy it is, and they seem to enjoy the act of denigrating themselves and their peers. “I swear our gen is so cooked,” one person writes. “Historians will skip this generation. This is why aliens don’t visit us,” another top comment says. Lurking beneath the antisocial facade is a simmering sense of pride for these depths of depravity.
In a decade that some critics believe has a shortage of newness and invention, slop is one of the few frontiers that’s actively being pushed. It’s a paradox: The vast heap of this content is exactly what it says on the bin (rifiuti), but there’s something strikingly modern about these evolving metas of inhuman fantasy-craft and mercenary ways of grabbing attention. Sense-annihilating dreck has become a generational identity that these kids can claim as their own.
Make no mistake: AI sucks, and many of the creators latching onto Italian brainrot are content autobots. But Italian brainrot’s invisible massiveness, totally foreign to oldsters but beloved by children across continents and languages, is a compelling and chilling showcase of our frazzled internet culture landscape. Barely any other media in recent times has given me an instant shock of glee or revulsion like this absurd anarcho-cartoon being stretched and squeezed to its most grotesque and wholesome clickbait limits. These Italians can’t be put back into the zoo.