The Internet’s Latest Addiction: AI Fruit Slop
What is AI fruit slop?
The world has seen its fair share of odd and absurd trends for young online users to absorb, especially since the growth of AI, from puppies and babies dancing to brain rot. According to TodayNews, AI slop is “low-quality video, images, audio, text or all of the above, made with AI-generation tools like Midjourney, Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, or Adobe Firefly, which pull from millions of sources.” But the latest trend is arguably even more absurd: AI Fruit Slop. Personified fruit characters, nicknamed things like “Strawberrina” or “Bananito,” are AI-generated in dramatized scenarios, the most common being cheating storylines. For example, Strawberrina is depicted cheating on her husband who is a male strawberry, and then becomes pregnant with a child that is a banana, the telltale sign of her infidelity. The male strawberry reacts in a fit of rage, and the situation sometimes escalates to violence or revenge. Sounds pretty otherworldly, right? But there are thousands of similar videos circulating online, and viewers are enjoying every second of it.
AI Fruit Love Island
Among the cheating videos, there is a popular subgenre of AI fruit slop that has subsequently emerged: AI Fruit Love Island. Love Island is a popular reality TV show on Peacock which involves a group of contestants living in a remote villa under video surveillance. To stay in the show, the islanders must couple up with one another, and the winning couple receives $100,000. The show consists of entertaining challenges, surprises, and often conflicts that put these couples to the test.
People are recreating the premise of the show, starring mischievous and calculating fruit-people instead. The TikTok account that released the series, @ai.cinema021, has racked up hundreds of millions of views on its multi-episode series.
Backlash and Rebuttals
Most of the viewers are in some part aware of the negative impacts of artificial intelligence, yet their eyes stay glued to the short-form content. The Guardian says that AI slop “creates a substantial environmental footprint through massive energy consumption and water usage for data center cooling” and “is projected to add 44 million tons by 2030.” TikTok users are criticizing those who interact (like, share, and watch) AI slop, including the recent fruit videos, since views and likes encourage similar content to be made.
Users are also analyzing the harmful effects of AI fruit slop on society and our intelligence. TikTok user @xndjgsbmgzk has garnered over a hundred thousand likes on a post where they claimed “ai has ALREADY used between 312.5 and 764.6 billion liters of fresh water…our cognitive ability is shrinking.” Other users claim that society is regressing due to the fact that we are entertained by such absurd and vulgar storylines. TikTok user @stealyogf06 shared “If you are entertained by talking ai fruit, I genuinely consider you to be a lower subdivision of human.” Questions on heteronormativity and over-sexualization are also called into the conversation, as the fruits are always depicted as hyperfeminine and hypermasculine, with accentuated and unrealistic bodies. Additionally, with multiple glitches and mistakes in the animation and voiceovers due to the quick and unedited AI-generation of this content, it is evident that animators are still necessary in the world of art and entertainment, since AI is riddled with inconsistencies.
Some content creators are pushing back by using real fruit to pose as the AI fruit characters, and recreating common scripts and storylines with their own voices. Some even dress up as the fruit, in an effort to steer viewers away from the AI-generated content.
It’s clear that AI is still causing unease amongst the public, especially as it creeps deeper into our personal lives. From being utilized in academic settings to now being a form of casual entertainment, a product of our collective mindless scrolling, it is harder to avoid. However, if you want to avoid AI content, you can press “Not Interested” on multiple social media platforms if the AI fruit slop comes across your For You page. Or, viewers can always just watch Love Island on Peacock! Regardless, it seems that AI is not going away anytime soon, leaving Gen Z to wonder what absurd trend comes next.
