Fin: Taylor Lorenz and Tung Tung Tung Tung Sahur: Italian Brainrot goes mainstream
The great TV of the NFL Draft, what inspired Sinners, Rocky Horror in 4K, and more in this week’s notes column.
As I’ve made clear, I am a skeptic of the rise of AI. Everything I’ve seen from the people behind artificial intelligence companies is that they have horrifically bad intentions. Their main goals are to no longer require businesses to employ anyone, with a sideline in stealing the entire history of intellectual property.
As a person who writes about movies, I want no part of a technology that aims to replace movies, and also writing, although if there’s any saving grace, it’s that A.I. has shown itself unprepared to do either, at least so far. And I believe that once A.I. is more rampant, various sectors of the economy, including writers and creative people, will be able to use “humans created this!” as a major selling point.
That said, if A.I. is being used for ridiculous silliness that doesn’t require stealing from people or putting them out of a job… I’m less skeptical.
I’m talking, of course, about Tim Cheese, John Pork, Tralalaro Tralala, and Tung Tung Tung Tung Sahur.
Whenever my teenage kids get obsessed with something, Taylor Lorenz usually has a newsletter about it within a week or two. And that happened this week.
Here’s Taylor:
Right now, there's an epic story playing out across Instagram Reels. John Pork, a virtual influencer with a pig's head on a human body, was allegedly murdered by Tim Cheese, an AI-generated rat who was once Pork's best friend. The murder was witnessed by Pingu, the animated penguin who starred in a Swiss children's show in the 90s. Simon Claw, an AI-generated cat, may have aided in the killing, while Marvin Beak, a war-hardened bird and former assassin, was hired to avenge John’s death.
Yes, I know this stuff sounds silly. But my kids and all their friends are way, way more into it than the new Marvel movie. And that’s to say nothing about the “Italian Brainrot” side:
The rise of John Pork lore, which has recently crossed over into the Italian Brainrot cinematic universe, exemplifies a transformative shift in media, where decentralized, AI-driven storytelling is reshaping the online entertainment landscape. Users are leveraging easily-accessible AI image and video generation tools to produce videos, images, and narratives that collectively build out complex stories around different characters to move a plot forward.
“Italian Brainrot,” you say? It’s an endless series of posts, narrated in nonsense Italians, about characters with names like Tralalara Tralala, Tung Tung Tung Sahur, and Ballerina Cappucina:
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Is this all very stupid? Yes it is! But it’s undeniably funny, and it may be the future.
The NFL Draft was the best TV show of the year
The annual NFL Draft was last week, and the big story was Shadeur Sanders, the Colorado quarterback and son of Deion, who was expected to go at the top of the draft, and slid all the way to the fifth round on the third day, going to the Cleveland Browns.
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