TikTok users are using Luma AI’s new Dream Machine tool to create nightmarish remakes of classic memes, from “Okay Guy” to the girl who’s “in my mom’s car.” In some examples, Shooglebox co-founder Mark Hird shows how AI is reshaping digital content.
Shooglebox is a platform designed to help users collect and understand information from various sources, with a keen interest in the intersection of technology and creativity.
A surprising example of this is happening on TikTok, where a new AI tool called Dream Machine from startup Luma AI has unleashed a wave of innovative content. Within a week of Dream Machine’s debut, a trend sprung up on TikTok in which “time travelers” change the endings of famous Vines and memes. Creators are using Dream Machine to inject shadowy figures into these famous clips, creating the illusion of time travel to freeze these viral moments.
The result is some hilarious, and often slightly unsettling, videos. For example, this one based on the viral Rizz Party meme on TikTok has been viewed more than 5 million times, with comments like “That’s scary,” “So scary,” and “[this] It really feels like I’ve stepped out of a spooky dream.”
@beenup100nights #ai #aivines #vines #vine #meme #foryou #viral #trp #tiktokrizzparty ♬ Time your death – Shiro Sagisu
Below is the original TikTok Rizz Party video that spawned countless memes, fan fiction, and legends about the boys.
Luma AI’s Dream Machine turns still images into short videos based on text prompts, and as soon as the tool became available a week ago, people started using it to animate still-image memes like “distracted boyfriend.”
@zulacash #ai #vine #aivine #timetravel #boyfriendmeme #lookback #aigenerated #aivideo #tiktok ♬ Time to wait for death – Shiro Sagisu
This quickly blossomed into a trend of more creative AI time travelers, now reviving the six-second Vine videos popular from a decade ago to bring back nostalgia for people of a certain age, and introducing them to younger audiences on TikTok, with a strange twist at the end thanks to the fact that Dream Machine often randomly adds strange and creepy figures to the animated images. The trend was inspired by a video posted to X on June 14, just a few days after the Dream Machine was released to the public. It’s based on a classic Vine video in which a boy says the answer to 9 + 10 is 21. In the AI version, a menacing shadowy figure interrupts the boy before he can say 21.
Do not say pic.twitter.com/3HYTBVbDef — Twash (@TwashTheMan) June 14, 2024
Here’s a YouTube video using the original Vine that was posted in June 2013 and was viewed for over 30 minutes: The AI version has caused the YouTube video’s views to skyrocket, with people commenting that after watching the “horrible AI video,” they’re “compelled to come back and watch the OG again.”
In a response to X’s post, the video’s creator, @TwashTheMan, said he created the video by uploading stills from the original Vine to Dream Machine and adding a descriptive text prompt. When asked what the prompt was, Dream Machine replied that he was “bad at following prompts” so he used a simple one: “Kid punches the camera.”
His videos were then reuploaded onto TikTok, which spawned a string of feature-length videos featuring a time traveler on a mission to stop or interrupt all the popular Vines and memes.
Follow ♬Original Sound – .
The version below, which has been viewed over 16 million times, is an altered ending to a December 2014 Vine video featuring “Okay Guy.”
@oliveoiljunior #ai #vine #aivine #timetraveller ♬ Marking time and waiting for death – Shiro Sagisu
Here’s the original Vine, which scored a 200+ ft loop 10 years ago.
Other highlights include the Time Traveler stopping Charlie from biting his brother’s finger, stopping Squidward from dubbing, and stopping a baby at the Four Seasons Orlando from saying “Me!”
KFC was one of the first brands to jump on the trend, featuring a time-traveling “chicken” in the 2014 Vine video “I’m in My Mum’s Car, Broom Broom.”
@kfc_uki Another Vine interrupted by a time traveller #ai #aimeme #aivine ♬ Creepy and simple horror BGM(1070744) – howlingindicator
While the advertising potential of this trend is still untapped, AI tools like Dream Machine are already reshaping the digital landscape and redefining internet culture in real time.
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