The Big Bang of "BRAINROT"

Imagine it’s mid‐January 2025. You’re scrolling through TikTok, late‐night, half‐asleep, when you stumble onto something that feels like a fever dream—an AI‐generated shark in Nike sneakers, bobbing its head to a sped‐up nursery rhyme. It’s weird. It’s wild. It’s called Tralalero Tralala, and it’s the first spark in a bonfire of pure, unfiltered absurdity we now call the Italian Brainrot trend.

The Opening Shot: “Tralalero Tralala” Takes the Stage

We start with a lone creator—@eZburger401—who pops onto the scene on January 13, 2025. No fanfare, no big production budget—just a phone, a free AI image generator, and a TTS engine (Text-to-Speech Dumbo <3) that spits out a ridiculous, over-the-top Italian‐accent voice. In that 10‐second loop, a tattooed kid in Poland unleashes a three‐legged shark wearing Nikes onto the world, set to a nursery‐rhyme beat. It sounds like someone took a slice of “Pinocchio” audio, mashed it into a nursery tune, and marinated it in espresso.

The moment you watch it, you realize two things:

1. “What the hell did I just see?”

2. “I have to watch it again.”

TikTok’s “For You” algorithm—a frenzied beast with an appetite for weirdness—picks up on that second reaction. Once you linger on “Tralalero,” the algorithm starts feeding you more. And each video gets stranger. By the third play, you’re hooked.

The Second Act: “TungTung Sahur” Joins the Party

Fast-forward to February 28, 2025. Over in Indonesia, @noxaasht decides to riff on the same recipe: AI mashup + sped-up nursery beat + Italian voiceover, only this time with a local twist. Enter TungTung Sahur—a wooden bedug drum spirit with a baseball bat. It’s got that trademark “tung tung tung” onomatopoeia echoing the pre‐dawn drumbeats that rouse villagers for Ramadan. But here, the TTS Italian says something like: “Attenzione, amici—a scary sahur anomaly is comin’ for your coconuts!” (Or something equally bonkers in broken Indonesian.)

Within hours, 31 million views. Yes, you read that right—31 million. People are remixing it, dancing to it, making T‐shirts, dubbing it in local dialects, and even whispering about a “TungTung Sahur” indie film. The key ingredients? Familiar cultural touchstone (ramadan drum), a twist of chaos (AI demon-drum), and that hypnotic Italian patter (“molto pericoloso, compagni!”).

Meet the Real Star: Špijuniro Golubiro (Spy Pigeon)

Meanwhile, in the Balkans—March 15, 2025—Croatian user @dontmakemeobvious pulls a move so deft, it’s like dropping a surprise cameo in a Tarantino flick. He conjures Golubiro Špijuniro, aka the “spy pigeon”: an AI‐rendered pigeon in a tiny vest, skulking through a Dubrovnik back alley. The TTS, with a mock-Italian accent, crackles via your speakers: “Ecco lo spioniro—il piccione del governo, fottuto Golubiro!” In two weeks, it’s at 1.6 million views.

The pigeon isn’t just a bird; it’s a subversive statement. In ex-Yugoslav culture, pigeons mean peace… but here, the bird’s an undercover agent, espionage wings folded, ready to rat you out at any moment. Fans in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia—they see a piece of home in that pigeon, and they dive in. Soccer clubs like Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus even repost their own “Golubiro” takes, racking up 3.6 million plays in 48 hours. Suddenly, a backyard meme becomes a global inside joke.

Influencers and Brands: Fueling the Viral Explosion

Once @eZburger401 and @noxaasht proved proof-of-concept, influencers and brands hustled to ride the wave. Agents know that high engagement on any emerging trend = more followers + better brand metrics. A few prime examples:

Paris Saint-Germain (PSG)

March 20, 2025: PSG’s official TikTok posted an 8-second foreign-language caption of a Golubiro soaring over the Parc des Princes, dubbed by the viral Italian TTS: “Signore tifosi, il piccione si nasconde nel vostro stadio!”

Results: 3.6 million views in 48 hours. Comments swirled—“PSG using memes better than most clubs use players.”

Referenced on PSG TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@psg/video/7486894969530207510

Ryanair

March 28, 2025: Ryanair’s cheeky “Golubiro Safety Briefing,” in which the TTS pigeon rattles off in Italian-English “Please fasten your seatbelts, or I will snoop on you from the cockpit… fottuti passeggeri!”

Result: 138 K likes and dozens of “TikTok-influenced” comments, e.g., “Ryanair going full meme season, but we love it.”

Referenced on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanair/reel/DHq-BZFNkfc/?api=pg%2Bdemo%2Bgratis%E3%80%90GB999.BET%E3%80%91.arkw&hl=am-et

PSA: Digital Rules for Brands

(Btw PSA means Public Service Announcement)

Speed over Perfection: The speed with which PSG & Juve responded—less than two weeks from the original “Golubiro” post—ensured they were part of the conversation when #golubiro peaked.

Authentic Tone: They didn’t try to “police” or “explain” the joke; they simply jumped in, posted the meme, and let fans riff on it. No corporate disclaimers.

Localization: Local hashtags (#Balkan, #Ramadan, #Croatia, #Turin) helped target specific audiences: soccer ultras vs. Ramadan watchers vs. ex-Yugoslav diaspora.

Lessons in Virality: What “Italian Brainrot” Teaches Tech & Media

1. Low Barrier to Entry → High Participation

2. Cross-Cultural Mash-Ups Breed Novelty

3. Short-Form, Repeatable Format

4. Platform Algorithms & Feedback Loops

5. Influencers as Catalysts, Not Just Amplifiers

6. Memetic Modularity Builds “Lore”

7. The “Junk-Food Culture” Paradox

AI Generation as the New “Digital Video Camera” AI-based image and voice generation tools are to memes what camcorders were to YouTube in 2005. User adoption will keep accelerating. By mid-2025, we’re already seeing “AI Joker” filters and “AI Barack Obama” voiceovers—no special skill required.

Rise of Micro “AI Brains” Expect regional “AI Subcultures”: “French Brainrot” (Franco-TTS plus Parisian landmarks), “Bollywood Brainrot” (AI mash-ups of Bollywood tropes with Italian voiceovers), “Fútbol Brainrot” (South American soccer satire). Each will have its own local uptake before merging into the global swirl.

Brands/Influencers Will Need “AI Meme Intelligence” Just as social listening tools exist today, tomorrow’s “AI Meme Analytics” will track emergent templates, thematic undercurrents, and audience sentiment in real time—crucial for any brand that wants to stay “on play.”

More “Conscious Meme Consumption” With AI filled to the brim with random bizarre generators, kids will develop “meme curation” skills—kind of like how Spotify algorithms trained listeners to detect and favorite emerging microgenres. Emerging “meme DJs” will earn street cred for blending “gen-Z mashups,” “AI glitch,” and “OTT hyper-realism.”

TL:DR

So, that’s where the Italian Brainrot trend kicked off: a couple of rogue creators dropped surreal AI images paired with exaggerated Italian narration onto TikTok, and the rest of us couldn’t look away. We retweeted, reposted, remixed—fanned the flames until the whole world was buzzing in broken Italian: “Golubiro! TungTung! Tralalero!”

In the next part of this newsletter, we’ll dive into how influencers and brands turned this digital fire into rocket fuel, and how you—yes, you—can tap into these same viral currents to build your own tech career brand or product. But for now, ask yourself: when was the last time you saw something so gloriously strange that you just had to share it? That, my friend, is the spark of a new era—one fueled by AI, randomness, and the deliciously absurd.

Stay tuned. The next act’s about to begin.

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See you on the bright side,

George