The material life of Italian Brainrot

Some observations on how the synthetic mythos of nonsensical characters might also be the first repertoire of AI-generated content to take physical form at a global scale.

The origin story of the social media content genre known as Italian Brainrot is well documented: in January 2025, TikTok user @amoamimandy posted a video featuring an AI-generated shark wearing three blue Nike sneakers paired with a haunting jingle and a text-to-speech audio clip in Italian, which rhymed the nonsensical onomatopoeia “trallallero trallalà” with various profanities and blasphemies.

The absurd walking shark became known as Tralalero Tralala, and inspired other users to create and upload new AI-generated characters, including Bombardiro Crocodilo (a crocodile-bomber mashup), Lirili Larila (an elephant-cactus hybrid with a single sandal), Cappuccino Assassino (a self-explanatory ninja coffee cup), and many more strange admixtures. Emerging in the wake of ‘brain rot’ being declared 2024 Word of the Year by the Oxford Dictionary, and because of their Italian voiceover, these characters came to be known as Italian Brainrot, and rapidly grew into a global phenomenon.

Italian Brainrot is arguably the first genre of content based on generative AI tools that does not only constitute a coherent repertoire driven by imitation (think of the 2020 Dame Da Ne/Baka Mitai singalong deepfakes or the 2023 wave of Controllism), but also coalesces into an interconnected universe of characters – something that could perhaps be called a synthetic mythos. This mythos of unlikely generative mashups is consistently developed by users through crossover narratives and branching spin-offs such as the complex genealogy of Ballerina Cappuccina or the convoluted history of the Great Brainrot War.

Even more strikingly, Italian Brainrot is also likely to be the first AI-generated repertoire to transcend digital formats on a large scale and circulate as material objects across physical locations – a phenomenon I first observe in August 2025, when my friend Awe IX sends me photos from a Bangkok market that display rows of Italian Brainrot plush toys hanging alongside metal earrings and keychains.

My friend kindly buys me a Lirila Larila plush toy – a soft elephant-cactus wearing two red sandals, twenty centimeters tall, with a metal chain and key ring, produced by a brand called “Happy Times” and manufactured in Foshan, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China. Weeks later, as he travels around South Korea, Awe IX sends me a photo of a local market stall selling t-shirts with pictures of Tralalero Tralala, Cappuccino Assassino and other Italian Brainrot creatures, displayed among other clothing featuring popular brands and characters like Iron Man and Superman. Italian Brainrot is officially out of containment.

Once back in Italy for my summer vacation, I meet my cousin Agnese, who has bought me a metal foil pack called “Trallallero – A Brainrot Collection” and produced by Italian company Sbabam: when I rip it open, I find a small figure of Cappuccina Ballerina roughly rendered in soft rubber. Its manufacturing imprecisions are endearing. A few days later, back from a visit to my grandparents’ resting place, I sit in a lakeside café and my eyes fall on a toy capsule vending machine which, instead of dispensing chewing gum, temporary tattoos or bouncing balls, is filled with Italian Brainrot rubber figure keychains. Managed by Italian toy distributor FIAM Automazione, this machine promotes the character line through TikTok and YouTube logos, emphasizing the collectible nature of the randomized product. I convert all 2€ coins in my possession into more keychains.

In the countryside town where I’m staying, the local newspaper stall is also selling Italian Brainrot, but in a different form: collectable stickers and trading cards. The first time I try to buy some, the friendly middle-aged lady behind the counter informs me that only stickers are available, as the trading card game is often sold out as soon as it is restocked. I buy an album and ten packs of stickers, go home and crack them open, filling the pages with characters directly borrowed from the AI-generated content circulating on TikTok and Instagram, such as “Zibra Zubra Zibralini”, a zebra/watermelon hybrid described by its tagline as a “globetrotter visiting strange worlds”.

The back of each sticker pack, produced by Italian publisher Panini in collaboration with the Italian toy company Skifidol, displays a paradoxical disclaimer:

All rights reserved. Skifidol TM Italian Brainrot was developed with the support of AI.

This is a fascinating line, as most of the characters depicted on the stickers, while being indeed AI-generated, are also created by uncredited users. A few days later, I am back at the newspaper stall and the Italian Brainrot trading cards are finally back in stock – I acquire five packs and an official album, starting my second collection.

From this Summer of Brainrot onwards, it’s all downhill. After I’m back from holidays, my uncle sends me a photo of potato chips bags branded with Ballerina Cappuccina; Awe IX chimes in with a photo of a Chinese Tralalero Tralala construction block set; ALGOFOLK researcher Hanna Lauvli reports back from Thai markets selling Brainrot surprise eggs, Brainrot children backpacks and, in a further twist of product design complexity, Brainrot character cars branded as faux Funko Pop toys. Piled up right next to a box of Hello Kitty merchandise are Chimpanzini Bananini (a banana-ape) and Bombardiro Crocodilo (the crocodile bomber plane), each sitting behind the wheel of comically small toy cars and displayed in a signature cubic box with a transparent plastic window, the fake logo identifying them as “Pop! Italian Brainrot”.

The proliferation of recognizable brainrot characters across variants and designs is well-suited for both stand-alone sale and blind-box retail models, as demonstrated by the large variety of collectibles packaged in randomized plastic capsules, booster packs, and cardboard boxes. These packaging formats also make more legible the localization of brainrot beyond its original Italian connection: a box of Tung Tung Tung Sahur collectibles is appropriately branded as “Indonesian Brainrot”, and a series of Chinese brainrot figures is called “AI Classic of Mountains and Rivers”, referencing the illustrated folk bestiary Shan Hai Jing (4^th century BCE).

In Spring 2026, the material life of Italian Brainrot develops alongside more and more complex loops. Walking around Hong Kong, I spot a Tung Tung Tung Sahur rubber keychain sticking out from a wall display of unrelated accessories, all branded with the tourist-friendly label “Kowloon Souvenir”. While traveling in Oslo, I find a dispenser of large plastic capsules containing “Mini Super Squeeshy Italian Brainrot” plush toys: the one I buy, for 149 NOK, contains a highly squeezable Ballerina Cappuccina.

The multiple labels sewn onto the toy and plastered over its container trace a circuitous journey – starting from a factory in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, where the figure was manufactured, through the Dubai-based toy company TEAM L.L.C.-FZ, to the Danish importer Maki A/S. As I add these brainrot materials to my collection, I realize I am holding hold both ends of one of these material loops in my hands: the first plush toy found in a Thai market, and the last one that has now reached Norway inside a blind box; both fabricated in Guangdong, China’s manufacturing hub, and both modeled on characters inferred by unspecified text-to-image models via the creative decisions of uncredited creators.

Italian Brainrot – with its sprawling, global mutations and narrative throughlines – is both the first synthetic mythos and the first consistent repertoire of AI-generated content to become material through established channels of physical manufacturing and commercial circulation. Synthetic characters created by social media users have existed before, and Chinese factories have been producing Gorilla-shaped AI slop sofas for a while – but this is something new. When combined, the vernacular origins and uncopyrightable nature of Italian Brainrot suggest a provocative claim: if this is not the first distributed property to have widespread commercial success without a major IP holder behind it, one is probably just around the corner.