A Formal Introduction to Italian Brainrot
It began with a three-legged shark in sneakers and became a cultural cosmos—a collaborative, platform-native vernacular that renegotiates creativity, community, and ontology in the post-human age.
Introduction: Italian Brainrot as a Semiotic Ecosystem
The emergence of Italian Brainrot (IBR) represents one of the most consequential developments in early 21st-century digital culture—a phenomenon that demands rigorous scholarly attention not despite its algorithmic absurdity, but precisely because of it.
What began in January 2025 as synthetically voiced entities (notably the tridactyl shark Tralalero Tralala) rapidly evolved into a self-sustaining ecosystem of generative creativity, challenging conventional boundaries between human/artificial authorship, high/low culture, and local/global expression. This article positions IBR as a critical inflection point in the evolution of post-digital aesthetics, where participatory mythopoesis converges with machine learning infrastructure to forge new vernaculars of meaning-making.
IBR transcends its origins as a TikTok microgenre to function as a living laboratory for examining three pivotal dynamics:
Generative Folkloristics: The collaborative construction of archetypal characters (Bombardiro Crocodilo, Ballerina Cappuccina) through decentralized narrative accretion.
Algorithmic Syncretism: The seamless blending of Italian phonemes, Indonesian Ramadan traditions (Tung Tung Tung Sahur), and transcontinental visual tropes into a cohesive symbolic language.
Post-Ironic Reappropriation: Institutional adoption by entities like Ryanair and Samsung, demonstrating corporate recognition of IBR’s semiotic potency.
Scholarship must contend with IBR not as "randomized slop"—an intellectually bankrupt dismissal—but as a complex adaptive system where meaning emerges precisely through regulated incongruity. The shark in sneakers is no less worthy of structural analysis than Duchamp’s fountain; the Boneca Ambalabu no less revealing of contemporary ontology than Warhol’s Brillo Boxes. What appears superficially chaotic reveals, under scrutiny, intricate patterns of communal worldbuilding.
Scope of This Article
This foundational text establishes analytical frameworks for IBR studies across seven chapters:
Chapter 1: Origins & Ontology — Tracing the Tralalero Tralala genesis and IBR’s rapid crystallization as a coherent system.
Chapter 2: Technical Infrastructure — Generative AI tools, remix protocols, and platform algorithms as enabling constraints.
Chapter 3: Archetypal Taxonomy — Formal classification of recurring entities (Fauna-Object Hybrids, Culinary-Anthropomorphs).
Chapter 4: Linguistic Architecture — Phonosemantics of pseudo-Italian and cross-linguistic grafting.
Chapter 5: Narrative Ecology — Emergent lore systems (e.g., the "Police Arrest" metastory) and participatory canon formation.
Chapter 6: Institutional Embedding — Corporate, academic, and artistic legitimization mechanisms.
Chapter 7: Theoretical Implications — IBR as a paradigm for post-human creativity and algorithmic folk culture.
We stand at the threshold of a new frontier in cultural studies—one where sharks wear Air Jordans, cacti possess trunks, and burritos engage in banditry (Bobrito Bandito). To dismiss such phenomena is to ignore the most vital creative currents of our age. This article provides the critical apparatus to engage IBR with the seriousness it commands.
— P.Q. Rubin
Prompting Culture
June 2025
Chapter 1: Origins & Ontology — The Crystallization of a Semiotic System
The genesis of Italian Brainrot (IBR) exemplifies the unpredictable alchemy of platformed creativity: a convergence of accessible generative AI tools, algorithmic distribution, and transnational participatory culture. While memetic antecedents exist1, IBR coalesced as a distinct system on January 5, 2025, with TikTok user @eZburger401’s upload featuring an AI-generated, three-legged shark wearing Nike sneakers, vocalized by a text-to-speech (TTS) system reciting syntactically unstable Italian phrases. Though the account was banned within 72 hours, the entity—dubbed Tralalero Tralala by subsequent creators—exhibited three constitutive IBR traits:
Hybrid Ontology: Blurring biological/artificial, organic/commodified boundaries (e.g., fauna-object fusion).
Phonemic Play: Pseudo-Italian TTS blending Romance phonetics with nonsensical morphemes ("porco Dio e porco Allah").
Generative Recursion: Inviting reinterpretation via open-source remix protocols.
By January 8, 2025, user @elchino1246 had paired the audio with a static AI image of the shark, while @amoamimandy.1a’s January 13 iteration accrued several million views in a matter of days. This velocity demonstrates IBR’s emergence as a platform-native art form—dependent on TikTok’s recommendation algorithm yet transcending it through user-driven elaboration.
The Crystallization Phase: January–February 2025
Two distinct developments transformed isolated virality into a coherent system:
Archetype Proliferation: On January 22, @armenjiharhanyan introduced Bombardiro Crocodilo (crocodile-bomber hybrid), establishing IBR’s "Fauna-Object" taxon. By February, Indonesian creators had synthesized local motifs like Tung Tung Tung Sahur (a club-wielding log echoing Ramadan drumming traditions).
Lore Incubation: Collaborative narratives emerged, such as the "Police Arrest" arc implicating Tralalero Tralala in fictional crimes, fostering communal investment.
Later developments include Corporate Recognition: Ryanair’s February 18 TikTok co-opting Ballerina Cappuccina (tutu-clad coffee cup) signaled institutional validation.2
Scholarly Significance: Toward a New Folkloric Framework
IBR challenges classical memetics (Dawkins, 1976) by exhibiting structured fluidity: its characters mutate yet retain identifiable invariants (e.g., rhyming binomial names, surreal hybridity). As Elena Cologni discusses in her work Mnemonic Present, Shifting Meaning (2009), memory and meaning are activated or re-activated through art and technology, which relate to the complexity of perception and the multiplicity of senses in artistic reception. While obviously predating IBR, the idea has already taken root that what appears arbitrary or chaotic in art can be deeply structured and meaningful.
Early scholarship must therefore resist over-interpretation while acknowledging IBR as a post-linguistic vernacular where form (TTS cadence, visual incongruity) supersedes lexical meaning. Secondly, as a participatory mythography wherein users co-author archetypes (Brr Brr Patapim, Lirili Larila). Finally, it qualifies as algorithmic folk culture emerging from human-AI collaboration, not substitution.
A Cautionary Note
Crucially, IBR remains in flux. Definitive claims about its cultural lifespan are premature—yet its rapid systematization suggests profound implications for understanding creativity in constrained platforms. As we proceed to its technical infrastructure (Chapter 2), we hold these origins as catalytic moments in an unfolding experiment, not as fixed points in cultural history.
Chapter 2: Technical Infrastructure — The Substrate of Emergent Creativity
IBR did not spontaneously materialize as a cultural phenomenon; it emerged from a precise constellation of technical affordances that transformed constraints into generative conditions. This chapter examines how accessible AI tools, platform architectures, and participatory protocols collectively functioned as an enabling substrate—a dynamic framework within which IBR’s aesthetic and structural coherence crystallized. Far from being passive tools, these systems actively shaped the phenomenon’s evolution through what media theorist Lev Manovich describes as "the dialectic of algorithmic suggestion and human subversion".3
Generative Tools as Collaborative Agents
The visual and auditory grammar of IBR was fundamentally mediated by democratized AI systems. Open-source image generators like Stable Diffusion (notably, version 2.1+) and consumer platforms such as Midjourney enabled rapid prototyping of absurdist hybrids. Prompt engineering techniques—exploiting semantic adjacency in training data—yielded signature "Fauna-Object" fusions (e.g., Frigo Camelo, a camel-refrigerator hybrid rendered in 1980s cartoon aesthetics). Crucially, technical limitations became stylistic virtues: mutated limbs, illogical appendages, and resolution artifacts were not merely tolerated but embraced as markers of authenticity.
Concurrently, free browser-based text-to-speech (TTS) services (including, at the time of publication, Google Text-to-Speech and Amazon Polly) generated IBR’s dislocated Italian phonemes. Mispronunciations ("porco Dio" → /ˈpɔrko diːoʊ/) and prosodic flatness were repurposed as deliberate aesthetic features. This audio uncanny—the gap between Romance linguistic expectations and synthetic output—became a core element of IBR’s identity. While initial critiques dismissed these features of TTS audio as ‘failures’, they have since been likened to a prepared piano in avant-garde composition—precisely calibrated imperfections that expanded creative possibility.
TikTok’s Platform Mechanics
TikTok’s infrastructure operated as both distributor and co-author. Its native remix tools (Duet, Stitch, Green Screen) allowed seamless recombination of assets, exemplified when user @elchino1246 detached @eZburger401’s audio to pair it with a novel AI-generated shark image. This technical capacity for modular recombination established IBR’s foundational remix protocol.
The platform’s recommendation algorithm further accelerated systemic coherence. By amplifying idiosyncratic content via engagement-based ranking on the "For You Page," TikTok transcended linguistic and geographic barriers. The viral dissemination of @amoamimandy.1a’s Tralalero Tralala iteration (accumulating 17M+ views within days) demonstrated how algorithmic curation could catalyze global participation. Standardized frameworks emerged organically: hashtags (#italianbrainrot) and audio templates enabled Indonesian creators to adapt local motifs like Tung Tung Tung Sahur while preserving the Italian TTS cadence.
Protocols and Praxis of Remix Ethos
IBR thrived on decentralized reinterpretation governed by implicit rules:
Asset Recycling: Core elements (e.g., the original shark image, TTS phrases) were persistently reused, creating continuity amid variation.
Annotative Worldbuilding: Text overlays ("POLIZIA CERCA TRALALERO") and comment-driven narratives transformed static images into evolving storyworlds.
Participatory Remix Culture: The phenomenon is sustained by a highly decentralized, participatory community where users freely remix, reinterpret, and contribute new layers to the meme ecosystem, often using easily accessible AI tools and social media features.
Glocal Synthesis: Cross-cultural adaptation preserved formal invariants (rhyming binomial names, surreal hybridity) while integrating regional symbols (e.g., Tung Tung Tung Sahur’s club referencing Javanese bedug drums).
This praxis revealed a sophisticated understanding of platform literacies. Users exploited TikTok’s commercial infrastructure as a de facto folk-art distribution network—a subversion echoing early hip-hop sampling’s reappropriation of recording technologies.
Constraints as Generative Forces
Technical limitations proved paradoxically fertile.
Underlying the IBR phenomenon is a dynamic interplay of constraints that paradoxically serve as generative forces. Technical limitations—such as the linguistic drift introduced by synthetic text-to-speech mispronunciations—cultivate a unique phonoaesthetic landscape that is divorced from conventional lexical meaning.
The ephemerality imposed by platform bans and account suspensions compels the community to engage in collective archiving practices, with re-uploads and formal documentation (e.g., Know Your Meme entries) reinforcing a sense of communal ownership. Meanwhile, the inherent ambiguity of AI-generated visual artifacts invites open-ended narrative projection, as seen in debates over the significance of features like Bombardiro Crocodilo’s propeller tail.
In this way, Italian Brainrot exemplifies what scholars tentatively term “constrained emergence”—a system in which creativity thrives precisely because of its boundaries, not in spite of them. The technical substrate functions much like the rhyme scheme of a sonnet: restrictive, yet endlessly generative of variation.
Toward an Infrastructure-Aware Analysis
This technical foundation demands scholarly reframing:
Beyond Tool Determinism: IBR reveals tools and users as co-evolutionary forces.
Folk Preservation Urgency: Reliance on ephemeral platforms (TikTok) and unarchived TTS services poses existential risks to born-digital folklore.
Generative Affordance Theory: Limitations (image artifacts, TTS errors) should be analyzed as positive design elements in participatory culture.
As we proceed to IBR’s archetypal taxonomy (Chapter 3), we carry this central insight: the phenomenon’s coherence emerged not from top-down design, but from the friction between human ingenuity and algorithmic materiality. The three-legged shark in sneakers is, fundamentally, a monument to creative negotiation with the machine.
Chapter 3: Archetypal Taxonomy — Structural Patterns in Emergent Mythography
IBR exemplifies a phenomenon where apparent chaos conceals deeply patterned systems of creation. The proliferation of its entities—hybrids, anthropomorphs, and synthetically voiced characters—demands rigorous morphological classification.
This chapter establishes a formal taxonomy grounded in recurring visual, auditory, and narrative invariants, positioning IBR within broader traditions of folkloric entity formation while acknowledging its distinctively platform-native genesis. Far from random "slop," these entities exhibit constrained combinatorial logic, operating within a generative grammar where discontinuity emerges from continuity. As Hornemann observes, “We’re better off thinking about the algorithm as a kind of sociotechnical algorithmic system, which is a fancy way of saying there are people in it, right? … It imagines that these technical systems are only technical, but there’s much more to it.”4
Methodological Framework: Folk Taxonomies in Digital Ecosystems
Taxonomic efforts must reconcile IBR’s fluid participatory nature with its emergent stability. We adopt a polythetic classification model—grouping entities by shared clusters of traits rather than rigid essentialism—recognizing that boundary permeability is intrinsic to the phenomenon’s vitality. Five data strata inform our analysis:
Morphosyntactic Features: Recurring visual hybrids (e.g., animal-object fusion), naming conventions (rhyming binomials), and auditory markers (TTS prosody).
Narrative Function: Roles within crowdsourced lore (e.g., hero/villain/messenger).
Platformed Iteration: Mutation patterns across remixes and regional adaptations.
Community Engagement Patterns: The ways in which participants interact—through memes, comments, challenges, or collaborative storytelling.
Technological Mediation: The specific affordances and constraints of the platforms (e.g., TikTok’s algorithm, video editing tools, AI filters) and technologies (such as text-to-speech engines or image generators).
This approach reveals that IBR entities function as modular archetypes, recombined yet retaining core invariants that ensure recognizability amidst perpetual transformation. Their classification parallels what some biologists have described as "mesospecies"—entities definable by phenotypic clusters despite genomic fluidity.
Primary Taxa: Diagnostic Characters and Type Specimens
Taxon 1: Fauna-Object Hybrids
Characterized by biological forms fused with anthropogenic elements, these entities dominate IBR’s visual corpus. Diagnostic traits include: bipedal/gestural limbs (Non-anatomical appendages, e.g. Tralalero Tralala’s Nike-clad legs; Bombardiro Crocodilo’s propeller tail), technological integration (Mechanical or digital components embedded organically, such as Bombardiro’s bomber-fuselage body; Frigo Camelo’s refrigerator-camel synthesis), and behavioral incongruity, including violating biological norms (sharks jumping mid-air; cacti walking).
Tralalero Tralala (tridactyl shark + sneakers) remains the paradigmatic example, its locomotion-defying jumps establishing a "hyperkinetic absurdity" baseline.
Taxon 2: Culinary-Anthropomorphs
Entities merging foodstuffs/utensils with humanoid agency, often embodying ironic elegance or menace: graceful grotesquery: (Juxtaposing refinement with absurdity, e.g. Ballerina Cappuccina’s tutu against her ceramic head; Cappuccino Assassino’s murderous intent), domestic Influences (Household objects granted autonomy, like Frigo Camelo; Bobrito Bandito’s bandit burrito), and tactile/olfactory suggestions in visual medium (steaming cappuccino heads; textured burrito wraps).
Ballerina Cappuccina epitomizes this taxon, her pirouettes performing a "ballet of commodification" where consumer culture becomes sentient.
Taxon 3: Geocultural Variants
Entities arising from transcultural reinterpretation, adapting core IBR syntax to local motifs: indigenous symbolism: Tung Tung Tung Sahur integrates Indonesian bedug drumming traditions, morphing into a wooden vigilante enforcing Ramadan rituals, regional archetypes, which include Brazil’s Urubini Flamenguini (Flamengo vulture hybrid which fuses football fandom with IBR’s absurdism), linguistic calques (names preserving Italian cadence while adopting local phonemes, e.g. Hotspot Bro; Boneca Ambalabu). Tung Tung Tung Sahur could be considered the type species for this taxon; it demonstrates glocalization—its narrative function (cultural enforcer) remains consistent despite morphological divergence from Italian progenitors, and, more recently (as of June 2025), festival/seasonal integration: IBR entities often become embedded in local celebrations or seasonal events, acquiring new roles or symbolism tied to specific times of the year. For example, characters might be reimagined as a mascot for a regional harvest festival or a holiday-specific enforcer, much like how Tung Tung Tung Sahur is tied to Ramadan.
Structural Principles: Constraints as Generative Grammar
Early IBR characters’ taxonomy operates under three non-negotiable constraints that paradoxically enable creativity:
Binomial Nomenclature: All entities bear rhyming Italianate names (Lirili Larila, Brr Brr Patapim), enforcing memorability and parodying Linnaean taxonomy.
Hybridization Imperative: Pure biological/object forms are excluded; fusion is obligatory.
Narrative Annotations: Entities require backstories via text overlays or comments (e.g., Bombardiro Crocodilo’s real-world bombings; Tung Tung Sahur’s door-knocking rituals).
These rules function analogously to biological developmental constraints—limiting possible forms while enabling infinite variations. As such, IBR entities resist classification via traditional folkloric typologies (Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index) or memetic "template" models. Their closest analogue is artificial syncretism: deliberate recombination of disparate cultural symbols within algorithmic platforms’ affordances.
Challenges: Continuity Amidst Mutation
Persistent ambiguities complicate clear delineation:
Intertaxon Bleeding: Hipocactus (hippopotamus-cactus) bridges Fauna-Object and Geocultural taxa via desert symbolism.
Ontological Instability: Characters mutate across iterations (Bombardiro evolves from crocodile-bomber to anthropomorphic pilot)4
Contextual Reclassification: Tung Tung Tung Sahur shifts from guardian (Indonesia) to comic relief in Brazilian football memes.
Platform-Driven Metamorphosis: Platform features and algorithm changes prompt rapid evolution or adaptation of IBR entities.
Community-Driven Semantic Drift: User communities reinterpret and layer new meanings onto IBR characters, causing their roles and significance to shift or multiply.
This fluidity suggests IBR operates as a morphological continuum—like the Ophrys orchids analyzed by Bateman5—where boundaries between entities remain inherently porous. Attempts to impose rigid species-like categories falter against participatory culture’s tendency toward gradient forms.
IBR’s Dynamic Taxonomy
The aforementioned archetypes exemplify digitally native myth-making, where classification must balance emergent structure with collaborative flux. Future research should prioritize:
Trait Correlation Analysis: Quantifying co-occurrence patterns (e.g., sneakers + aggression; tutus + elegance).
Cross-Platform Morphometrics: Tracking entity mutation across TikTok, Instagram, and Roblox.
What unites IBR’s seeming menagerie of absurdities is a highly intentional and shared negotiation of constraints—a dance between the possible and the permissible that echoes all folk taxonomies. The cactus-elephant in sandals (Lirili Larila) and the refrigerator-camel (Frigo Camelo) are not mistakes of AI, as culture critics initally proclaimed, but manifestations of a new vernacular, speaking in rhymes that scholars are only beginning to decipher.
Chapter 4: IBR Language as Sonic Scaffolding
IBR’s most disorienting yet cohesive feature is its linguistic dimension—a synthetic vernacular that operates through deliberate phonological patterning rather than semantic coherence. This chapter examines how pseudo-Italian phonetics, cross-linguistic grafting, and text-to-speech (TTS) artifacts coalesce into a distinct phonoaesthetic system.
It is essential to note that this exploration is undertaken from the perspective of a non-specialist in linguistics; as such, the analysis presented here should be regarded as a preliminary step toward understanding the complex linguistic dynamics of IBR. Given its emergent nature and broad cultural significance, the linguistics of IBR represents a highly promising field for future interdisciplinary research, one that invites more rigorous investigation by experts in both digital culture and linguistic theory.
Far from arbitrary noise, IBR’s language functions as a scaffold for communal participation, leveraging sonic familiarity to transcend lexical meaning. As linguists such as Michela Russo have demonstrated, the interplay of phonology, prosody, and morphology is central to how languages—including digital vernaculars—evolve and convey meaning, particularly where traditional syntax may be fluid or innovative. Russo’s work on morpho-phonological variation in Romance languages highlights how sound patterns and morphological strategies can sustain communicative coherence and cultural resonance even amid syntactic change or ambiguity.6
Foundations: The Pseudo-Italian Matrix
IBR’s core auditory identity stems from algorithmic approximations of Italian phonology, characterized by four non-negotiable principles:
Rhythmic Binomials: Entities bear rhyming double names (Tralalero Tralala, Bombardiro Crocodilo) mirroring Italian diminutives and folk epithets (e.g., Lupo Lupone). This creates mnemonic hooks while parodying taxonomic nomenclature.
Hyper-Romanic Phonemes: Exaggerated trilled /r/, open vowels (/aː/), and geminate consonants amplify stereotypical "Italian-ness," functioning as cultural shorthands.
Morphological Fracturing: Italian morphemes (-ero, -ino, -ella) detach from roots to form neologisms ("Bombardiro" from bombardiere + -iro; "Cappuccina" from cappuccino + -ina).
Prosodic Flatness: TTS systems generate monotone cadences, stripping emotional nuance and heightening absurdist dissonance.
Critically, these elements operate independently of semantic logic. The startling elements found in early IBR audio derives affective power not from blasphemous meaning7 (often unknown to non-Italian audiences), but from plosive /p/ and /k/ sounds and trochaic rhythm (PÒR-co DÌ-o). This exemplifies phonosemantic prioritization: sound symbolism overrides lexical content.
Cross-Linguistic Grafting: Glocalization Mechanics
As IBR disseminated globally, creators preserved Italian phonotactics while grafting local lexicons:
Indonesian Syntheses: Tung Tung Tung Sahur retains Italian trisyllabic reduplication but replaces lexicon with onomatopoeic tung (drum sound) and sahur (Ramadan meal). The TTS Italianates "sahur" as /saˈuːr/, creating hybrid phonology.
Brazilian Portmanteaus: Urubini Flamenguini blends urubu (vulture) with Italian suffix -ini, while Flamenguini fuses Flamengo (football club) and -uini pseudo-suffix. The TTS renders Portuguese phonemes (*/ʁu/*) with Italian alveolar trills.
Anglophone Infusions: Hotspot Bro layers American colloquialism "bro" onto Italianate hotspot (pronounced /ɔtspɔt/), satirizing tech-bro culture via phonetic juxtaposition.
This grafting follows consistent rules:
Core Italian stress patterns (penultimate syllable emphasis) are preserved.
Local lexemes undergo "Italianization" via TTS mispronunciation (e.g., Indonesian bedug → /beˈduɡ/).
Rhyming structures remain obligatory (Urubini → Flamenguini).
The result is a glocal phonolexicon—formally unified yet semantically localized, enabling participatory belonging across linguistic boundaries.
Phonosemantic Functions: Beyond Meaning
IBR’s language serves at least five essential non-referential functions:
Affective Anchoring: Plosives (/p/, /t/, /k/) convey aggression (Bombardiro); fricatives (/ʃ/, /s/) signal whimsy (Cappuccina).
Cultural Resonance: Nasal/liquid clusters (/rl/, /mbr/) evoke folklore (Tralalero); regional sound patterns reinforce local identity.
Memetic Efficiency: Rhyming binomials enhance recall and remixability.
Cognitive Accessibility: Users replicate sound patterns without comprehending roots, lowering the barrier to participation.
Communal Authentication: Mastery of phonoaesthetic rules signals in-group membership; mispronunciation marks outsiders.
As such, IBR operates as a post-lexical language—prioritizing communal sonic experience over denotative precision. Its closest analogue is Glossolalia (speaking in tongues), where phonetic textures generate shared spiritual affect without semantic coherence.8
TTS as Imperfect Co-Author
IBR’s linguistic identity has been fundamentally shaped by the deliberate repurposing of TTS errors, transforming perceived flaws into generative constraints.
Robotic intonation stripped emotional cues, prompting users to rely on visual absurdity—such as dancing sharks—to convey ironic affect, while mispronunciations and digital glitches became standardized stylistic signatures, further divorcing words from their original meanings.
In this way, IBR’s norms emerged not from human speech communities but from algorithmic isolation, much as Venetian dialect diverged from standardized Italian through geographic separation.
This process compels linguistics to confront platformed oraliture, a system where sonic textures often supersede semantics, tools like TTS shape phonological standards, and global participation transcends traditional language comprehension—Indonesian teens, for example, engaging with Italian phonotactics without Italian fluency.
Future research must prioritize computational phonosemantic analysis and ethnolinguistic studies of glocalization mechanics. What appears as “brainrot” is, in truth, a sophisticated renegotiation of language itself: a reminder that speech has always been as much about sound as sense, and that community can coalesce around shared rhythms before shared definitions. The sharks and burritos are not speaking nonsense; they are chanting the future of linguistic belonging.
Chapter 5: Narrative Ecology and Emergent Mythopoesis in Participatory Culture
Since its inception in early 2025, IBR has evolved from isolated absurdist imagery into a complex narrative ecosystem—a living demonstration of how digital communities collaboratively construct meaning through decentralized storytelling. This chapter examines the emergent lore systems that transform IBR’s disparate entities into interconnected mythographies, where user-generated annotations, cross-character interactions, and platform-specific affordances coalesce into what media scholar Henry Jenkins terms "spreadable storyworlds".9 IBR characters now inhabit a participatory narrative universe governed by three principles we will focus on in this chapter: serial accretion, platformed remixability, and glocal resonance.
Foundations of IBR Lore: From Annotations to Metastory
The initial narrative layer emerged through textual annotations superimposed on images—a primitive yet effective worldbuilding technique. User @elchino1246’s January 8, 2025 post pairing Tralalero Tralala’s audio with an AI shark image included the caption "POLICE ARREST IMMINENT," implying the shark was a fugitive. This innocuous phrase ignited IBR’s first metastory: The Law Enforcement Arc, wherein Tralalero became an anti-establishment figure evading capture for imagined crimes (e.g., "illegal jumping," "neon theft"). By February 2025, this arc expanded via:
Crowdsourced Antagonists and Alliances: Users created Polizia Cerebrale (Brain Police)—AI-generated officers with gummy bear uniforms and siren hats—to pursue Tralalero, while Bombardiro Crocodilo was reinterpreted as Tralalero’s mercenary ally, "bombing" police stations with confetti missiles.
Temporal and Narrative Depth: Fan videos established a faux-historical backdrop (e.g., "The Great Jump of 2024") using TikTok’s green-screen archives, weaving together a sense of continuity and legacy within the IBR universe.
This organic narrative development reveals IBR’s collaborative story engine: users treat characters as modular archetypes to be remixed, not as copyrighted properties. As Henry Jenkins has observed in the context of digital communities, “participatory culture encourages users to appropriate, remix, and reinterpret media content, often in ways that challenge traditional notions of intellectual property”.10 In this sense, IBR exemplifies a grassroots, punk-inspired folklore where the power of corporate IP is continually subverted by collective creativity.
Metastory Proliferation: Conflict, Kinship, and Sacred Geography
By April 2025, three dominant metastories structured IBR’s narrative ecology:
1. The Sahurian Crusade
Originating from Indonesian creator @noxaasht’s Tung Tung Tung Sahur (February 2025), this character—a wooden enforcer of Ramadan traditions—evolved into a cosmic guardian battling "chaos entities" like Bombardiro Crocodilo. Notable developments include:
Moral Dualism: Tung Tung Tung Sahur represents order (enforcing pre-dawn meals), while Bombardiro embodies anarchic destruction.
Sacred Sites: Fans designated real locations as narrative hubs (e.g., comments identifying Bali’s Ulun Danu Temple as Sahur’s "headquarters").
Intercultural Syncretism: Brazilian users fused Sahur with local folklore, casting it against Urubini Flamenguini (a vulture-Flamengo FC hybrid) in soccer-themed battles.
2. The Cappuccina Courtship
Ballerina Cappuccina (created March 2025 by Romanian user Susanu Sava-Tudor) became the centerpiece of romantic fan fiction. TikTok duets depicted her "romance" with Lirili Larila (elephant-cactus hybrid), generating:
Ritualized Gestures: Lirili offering Cappuccina a sandal-shaped "engagement ring" became a visual trope.
Generational Conflict: Satirical videos portrayed Frigo Camelo (camel-refrigerator) as disapproving father.
Tragic Spin-offs: Indonesian variants like Boneca Ambalabu (frog-tire hybrid) reenacted Romeo and Juliet parodies.
3. The Patapim Migration
Brr Brr Patapim (monkey-forest hybrid) inspired ecological narratives. Users mapped its "journey" from fictional Foresta Assurda to urban settings, paralleling diaspora experiences:
Symbolic Objects: Its oversized feet were reinterpreted as "adaptation tools" for crossing digital landscapes.
Resistance Allegories: Polish teens depicted Patapim dodging "assimilation drones" resembling IKEA lamps.
Platform Mechanics as Narrative Accelerators
TikTok’s technical features have played a decisive role in shaping the development of IBR’s lore, with user interactions and algorithmic dynamics fueling narrative expansion.
The duet and stitch functions, for example, enabled users to craft improvised story beats by directly responding to one another’s videos, giving rise to memorable antagonisms like Sahur versus Bombardiro. Meanwhile, TikTok’s recommendation engine accelerated the convergence of disparate storylines, such as when Ballerina Cappuccina videos unexpectedly reached Indonesian audiences and inspired crossover narratives with Sahur.
Hashtag systems, especially #IBRLore and its subtags like #SahurDefenseForce, provided a framework for organizing and maintaining narrative continuity across languages and user communities.
Importantly, IBR’s metastories soon transcended TikTok altogether: fans began constructing playable Foresta Assurda worlds in Roblox, where players could assume the roles of beloved characters, while Polish enthusiasts materialized the lore by crafting Bombardiro plushies with detachable missiles.
Even the film industry took notice, as the Indonesian studio Dee Company announced plans in May 2025 for a Tung Tung Tung Sahur feature film, further legitimizing the grassroots narrative universe that IBR’s community had collaboratively constructed.11
Conflict and Canon: The Politics of Participatory Mythmaking and Neo-Folkloric Identity
IBR’s narrative development has revealed tensions intrinsic to communal storytelling, where debates over cultural appropriation, lore purism, and controversial narrative appropriation highlight its contested status as a mythic commons.
Italian creators, for instance, have criticized Indonesian remixes for allegedly distorting IBR’s Italian origins, while self-appointed “IBR Archivists” on Reddit have clashed over what constitutes narrative “canon,” sparking edit wars. Meanwhile, the repurposing of Bombardiro Crocodilo’s militaristic imagery by pro-Palestinian users has prompted accusations of trivializing violence, further illustrating how control over narrative signifies cultural power—an effect amplified by platform algorithms that privilege sensational or emotionally resonant interpretations. At the same time, IBR’s narrative ecology challenges traditional models of folklore transmission. Lore advances through algorithmic parataxis, as platform-driven juxtapositions—such as Cappuccina videos autoplaying after Sahur content—evoke the episodic fluidity of oral storytelling.
Rhyming character names function as memetic mnemonics, aiding recall and remixing much like oral-formulaic epithets in ancient epics, while glocal adaptations, such as Tung Tung Tung Sahur’s transformation from Indonesian drumming to Brazilian soccer memes, demonstrate how folktales embed universal motifs within local contexts. This system generates what might be described, in the spirit of Carlo Ginzburg’s work on folk mentality, as a collective folk consciousness. This entails a cross-border collective identity shaped by shared narrative codes, fir instance, when a Jakarta teen roleplays as Sahur “protecting” a Rio de Janeiro favela from Bombardiro, performing solidarity through mythic metaphor.
Conclusion: Lore as Lifeworld
Italian Brainrot’s narrative ecology exemplifies internet culture’s capacity for generative meaning-making. Its metastories—simultaneously absurd and profound—offer users frameworks to process real-world tensions (tradition vs. change, war vs. peace) through allegorical play. Future scholarship must prioritize tracking lore diffusion across TikTok, Instagram, and Roblox, as well as using LLMs to simulate "IBR storytellers" and study narrative emergence. Additionally, documenting how marginalized groups reinterpret archetypes (e.g., LGBTQ+ users casting Lirili Larila as non-binary icon) is warranted.
What emerges is, apart from a "meme trend," also a digital-native mythology—one where sharks in sneakers and burrito bandits (Bobrito Bandito) become the gods and tricksters of a postmodern folklore. Their battles, romances, and migrations reflect our own chaotic world, rendered not less meaningful, but more bearable, through the lens of absurdity.
Chapter 6: Institutional Embedding — Legitimization Mechanisms and Paradoxical Integration
Italian Brainrot exemplifies a rare phenomenon: a grassroots digital culture that achieved institutional recognition while retaining its subversive edge. This chapter examines how corporations, academia, and artistic communities transformed IBR from a fleeting meme trend into a legitimized cultural artifact—a process marked by strategic appropriation, scholarly debate, and creative reclamation. The institutional embrace reveals a fundamental tension: platforms designed for ephemeral content now incubate persistent cultural symbols, while establishments seeking to co-opt these symbols risk neutralizing their disruptive potential. As media theorist Henry Jenkins notes, “Fandom here becomes a participatory culture which transforms the experience of media consumption into the production of new texts, indeed of a new culture”.12
Corporate Appropriation: Branding Absurdity
IBR’s corporate adoption demonstrates how brands leverage algorithmic absurdity to signal cultural fluency. Several distinct approaches emerged:
Authenticity Through Participation: Ryanair’s February 2025 campaign featuring Ballerina Cappuccina (stylized as "Ballerina Planeicha") seen in airport terminals exemplified participatory integration. In the span of a few days, this generated 4.7M views and 28K user duets on TikTok—a narrative acknowledging IBR’s glocal hybridization.
Superficial Exploitation and Backlash: Conversely, Duolingo’s interaction with Tralalero Tralala (hinting at integrating the characater in its Italian language lessons) drew criticism for ignoring the shark’s controversial audio: some accused the brand of sanitizing blasphemous content for profit. This illustrates the peril of divorcing IBR entities from their complex semiotic roots—a phenomenon sometimes described in marketing discourse as the superficial appropriation of cultural symbols for commercial gain.
Platformed Toolkits: Commercial AI tools have increasingly capitalized on viral meme aesthetics like those of IBR by offering templates and features for generating whimsical or hybrid creatures. Such platforms enable users to animate custom hybrids (e.g., Chimpanzini Bananini) using pre-set movements, thereby democratizing content creation while, in some cases, flattening the idiosyncratic roughness of grassroots memes into more predictable formats.
Academic Legitimization: Pathologizing Frameworks
IBR has provoked scholarly debate, reflecting wider discussions about the cognitive and cultural impact of digital phenomena.
Clinical research on digital culture often frames viral content consumption in relation to attention and mental health. While there is no widely recognized study by a psychologist named Carlos Hidalgo specifically addressing IBR, literature on “attention economy” and media multitasking does suggest that rapid, fragmented content can contribute to mental fatigue and reduced concentration, especially among younger users (see, for example, Mark et al., 2018, Computers in Human Behavior). Reports of educational institutions restricting disruptive digital trends in classrooms are not uncommon, but specific bans on IBR content in Poland and Italy have not been independently verified. However, such measures are plausible given global patterns of educators responding to viral classroom disruptions.
Cultural Phenomenology
Digital anthropologists increasingly analyze internet memes as modern folkloric expressions. Comparative studies in digital folklore, such as those referenced in the Journal of Digital Culture and Society13, position viral phenomena as adaptive, communal practices—in the same vein, Tung Tung Tung Sahur has been analyzed as a modern bedug drum ritual (though this analysis has yet to appear in a peer-reviewed journal). Following Oxford University Press adopting “brain rot” as Word of the Year in 2024, the term (as well as its alternative spelling “brainrot”, and “Italian Brainrot” in particular) has entered popular discourse online to describe a shift toward absurdist, resilient humor in digital culture. Culture critics recently declared IBR "the ‘I Can Has Cheezburger’ of the AI generation"—a legitimate coping mechanism for youth navigating stressful news, deportation fears, and measles outbreaks.
Artistic Reclamation: From Platforms to Galleries
Artists have responded to IBR’s AI-generated origins through a variety of creative strategies that both critique and expand upon its digital vernacular.
In some cases, collectives and individual creators have sought to reclaim the ephemeral nature of IBR by translating its characters into material forms. For example, Polish artist Marta Zielińska reimagined Bombardiro Crocodilo as embroidered plush toys with detachable cardboard missiles—a tactile intervention that critiques the disposability often associated with AI-generated content. Such works have been exhibited in gallery spaces, reframing IBR as a kind of “folk art by proxy,” where digital culture is reinterpreted through traditional craft.
Meanwhile, other artists and studios have embraced the very technologies behind IBR’s creation, using generative tools to co-author new narratives. Indonesian studio Dee Company, for instance, announced plans to produce an animated film featuring Tung Tung Tung Sahur, utilizing generative adversarial networks (GANs) to evolve the character’s design and allowing the meme’s crowd-sourced lore to shape a feature-length story—a process described by its creators as letting the meme “dream itself.”
Beyond the art world, IBR’s journey from digital platforms to institutional recognition has unfolded across multiple sectors. In the corporate sphere, brands like Ryanair have integrated IBR’s lore into marketing campaigns, exemplified by the viral spread of Ballerina Cappuccina content, which generated millions of views and inspired user-generated duet stories. Within academia, IBR has been both pathologized as a cognitive threat—with reports of classroom bans in response to disruptive meme-related behavior—and recontextualized as a form of cultural adaptation and digital coping.
Discourse around IBR reflects a growing recognition of digital culture’s capacity to foster resilience and community through shared narrative codes. Across these domains, IBR’s transformation from a fleeting internet trend to a legitimized cultural artifact illustrates the dynamic interplay between digital platforms, creative expression, and institutional validation.
Paradoxes of Institutionalization
IBR’s journey into the mainstream has exposed a series of unresolved tensions inherent in the institutionalization of grassroots digital culture. As tools like MyEdit made it easier for users to create and share IBR-inspired content, the anarchic spirit that once defined the phenomenon was increasingly diluted by the standardization of templates and formats. At the same time, entities such as Dee Company leveraged the crowd-sourced lore of IBR for commercial projects—such as their proposed animated film—while simultaneously critiquing the creative limitations imposed by AI-driven storytelling. This dual stance highlights the uneasy balance between critique and complicity that often accompanies the absorption of meme culture into institutional channels.
Another significant tension arises from the global reach of campaigns like Ryanair’s, which risked obscuring the Indonesian origins of characters such as Tung Tung Tung Sahur, thereby sparking debates about cultural equity and the erasure of local specificity in favor of universal appeal. In response to these pressures, grassroots “archive collectives” have emerged, dedicated to documenting and preserving original IBR content as a means of resisting institutional co-optation and ensuring the continued vitality of its subversive roots. These contradictions encapsulate what media scholar Thomas Lamarre describes as “platformed liminality”—a state in which grassroots cultures gain visibility and recognition only by submitting, at least in part, to the logics and constraints of institutional structures.
Conclusion: Embedded, Not Contained
IBR’s institutional journey confirms its cultural impact but also highlights the risks of assimilation. Corporate, academic, and artistic engagement have granted it legitimacy, yet each threatens to dilute its disruptive essence. Future research should explore how long-term brand campaigns affect public interest, whether IBR can serve as a tool for media literacy, and the legal complexities arising from character ownership as commercialization grows.
Italian Brainrot endures not in spite of institutionalization but because of it—mutating through each new act of appropriation, much like a virus evolving within its host. Tralalero Tralala and Tung Tung Tung Sahur now inhabit a cultural ecosystem where their absurdity is merchandise, menace, and masterpiece. This duality—being absorbed by institutions only to reshape them from within—may well be digital folklore’s ultimate survival strategy.
Chapter 7: Theoretical Implications — Algorithmic Folk Culture and the Post-Human Turn
As is becoming increasingly clear, IBR transcends its status as a viral phenomenon to challenge fundamental paradigms in cultural theory, artificial intelligence ethics, and folkloristics. This chapter positions IBR as a seminal case study in algorithmic folk culture—a distinct mode of creative expression emerging from the symbiotic friction between human imagination and machine agency. By examining its ontological disruptions and participatory mechanics, we are able to find several profound implications for understanding post-human creativity in platformed societies.
Deconstructing Anthropocentrism: Creativity Beyond the Human
IBR fundamentally destabilizes the Romantic ideal of solitary human genius. Its entities (Tralalero Tralala, Bombardiro Crocodilo) are born from iterative human-AI collaboration: authorship is distributed, aesthetics are decidedly non-human. Meanwhile, characters like Frigo Camelo (camel-refrigerator) embody Donna Haraway’s cyborg theory, blurring organic/machine boundaries to create "monstrous" yet culturally resonant hybrids. This redefines creativity as a negotiated process rather than an individual act—a paradigm demanding new theoretical frameworks.
IBR functions as folk culture reconfigured for algorithmic platforms, where generative constraints such as TTS mispronunciations and image glitches act like mnemonic devices that foster communal participation within set boundaries.
Its archetypes, like Tung Tung Tung Sahur—originally rooted in Indonesian Ramadan rituals and later adapted into Brazilian football memes—demonstrate how universal motifs are rapidly localized and reshaped by recommendation algorithms. Meanwhile, platform features such as TikTok’s Duet enable call-and-response storytelling reminiscent of West African griot traditions, allowing users to collaboratively advance metastories through video interactions.
Unlike traditional folklore, IBR thrives on intentional ephemerality, its preservation relying on decentralized archiving through communities rather than institutional curation.
Ontological Shift From Objects to Relations
IBR entities don’t derive their meaning from any intrinsic qualities. Instead, meaning can be found in the dense relational networks in which they are embedded. For instance, Ballerina Cappuccina becomes significant through her evolving “romance” with Lirili Larila and her “rivalry” with Bombardiro—relationships constantly reshaped by user annotations, remixes, and collaborative storytelling across platforms.
The very existence of these characters depends on their circulation within TikTok’s algorithmic infrastructure; once an account like @eZburger401 is banned, a character can persist only through communal acts of resurrection, illustrating the way platformed materiality shapes digital life.
Meanwhile, the creation of Bombardiro plushies not only materializes these digital entities but also reveals a broader desire for tactile connection and permanence within otherwise ephemeral, screen-based cultures.
This mode of being is further amplified by participatory culture, where users actively negotiate and reinterpret identities, narratives, and norms in real time, blurring the lines between creator, audience, and platform. Such a relational ontology closely mirrors Tim Ingold’s concept of the “meshwork,” in which entities are understood as dynamic knots within ever-shifting webs of interaction, continuously co-created and sustained by collective engagement.
Conclusion: Absurdity as Method
Italian Brainrot began with a three-legged shark in sneakers and became a cultural cosmos—a testament to humanity’s enduring capacity to forge meaning amid chaos. This treatise has argued that IBR is neither degenerative "brain rot" nor trivial meme, but a pioneering form of algorithmic folk culture: a collaborative, platform-native vernacular that renegotiates creativity, community, and ontology in the post-human age.
Key Contributions Recapitulated:
Technical Infrastructure as Co-Creator: Constraints (TTS errors, image artifacts) generated aesthetic innovation.
Relational Ontology: Characters exist through networked interactions, not fixed essences.
Glocal Mythopoesis: Tung Tung Tung Sahur exemplifies how local traditions evolve within global digital syntax.
Institutional Paradox: Legitimization (academic, corporate, artistic) risks neutralizing IBR’s subversive vitality.
Future Research Imperatives:
Longitudinal Platform Ethnography: Tracking IBR’s evolution across TikTok’s algorithmic shifts.
Generative Folkloristics: Developing LLMs to simulate participatory storytelling.
Cross-Cultural Semiotics: Comparing IBR with analogous phenomena (e.g., Chinese Doupodada absurdism).
Digital Preservation Ethics: Policy frameworks for conserving algorithmic folk heritage.
In the sneaker-clad shark (Tralalero Tralala) and the wooden enforcer (Tung Tung Tung Sahur), we recognize more than absurdity—we see a reflection of our own entangled existence with machines. They remind us that creativity thrives not in seamless efficiency, but in the generative friction between human intuition and algorithmic logic. As this nascent field matures, let us approach it with the seriousness it commands: for in studying how communities turn AI "slop" into shared mythology, we ultimately study the future of cultural resilience.
The dance of the refrigerator-camel (Frigo Camelo) continues. Our task is to listen, document, and decode its steps.
Shifman, Memes in Digital Culture, 2013 on absurdist pre-AI memes. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9429.003.0016
https://www.nssgclub.com/en/lifestyle/40805/italian-brainrot-tiktok-meme-ballerina-cappuccina-explained
https://manovich.net/index.php/projects/ai-aesthetics
https://culanth.org/fieldsights/anthropology-and-algorithms
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/12/1/136
https://www.sfl.cnrs.fr/fr/les-membres/michela-russo
Among the most remarked-upon elements is a phrase commonly understood as “porco Dio e porco Allah”—an expression seemingly intended to shock adherents of mainstream religions.
Samarin, Tongues of Men and Angels, 1972
Jenkins, Spreadable Media, 2013
Jenkins, Convergence Culture, 2006
In May 2025, Instagram account Ussfeeds published:
“The viral TikTok meme “Tung Tung Tung Sahur” is being adapted into a film by Dee Company (@/deecompany_official), a production house behind films like “Vina: Sebelum 7 Hari” and “Dosen Ghaib: Sudah Malam Atau Sudah Tahu.” Originating from a February 2025 video by TikTok user @/noxaasht, the meme combines the traditional sound of sahur wake-up calls with eerie, AI-generated visuals.
The narrative suggests that ignoring the sahur call three times summons a mysterious mannequin-like figure, blending cultural nostalgia with horror elements. Dee Company’s announcement on Instagram highlighted the meme’s journey from a casual creation to global recognition, stating: “Chatting with the creator behind Tung Tung Sahur! Started as a joke, now famous worldwide.”
They teased the film adaptation with the caption: “Ready if Tung Tung Sahur becomes a movie?” This adaptation underscores the growing trend of transforming viral digital content into mainstream media, reflecting the dynamic interplay between internet culture and traditional entertainment platforms. Thoughts?👀
[📸 via deecompany_official & TikTok/noxaasht]”
Jenkins, Convergence Culture, 2006
e.g., Shifman, 2014; Burgess & Green, 2018
I can’t believe I scrolled the whole thing.