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From "Ballerina Cappuccina" to "Trallalero Trallalà", what are the memes that have taken over the internet and their dark side

2025-05-31 12:46:05Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
From "Ballerina Cappuccina" to "Trallalero Trallalà",
From "Ballerina Cappuccina" to "Trallalero Trallalà", what are the memes that have taken over the internet and their dark side

If you're familiar with the silly memes that have taken over the internet in recent weeks, then you've encountered what's now called "Italian brainrot."

At first glance, this form of content may seem completely harmless, but some internet users have pointed out some problematic issues that need to be addressed.

It all started with a few viral videos on TikTok that quickly became a real trend. It was initially born on Italian TikTok, but soon the "Italian brainrot" broke out of its bubble and spread all over the world. Explaining the logic behind viral memes or trying to analyze some explosive trends is never easy - it's a phenomenon that we may never truly understand. They grab our attention, spread like wildfire, and suddenly, everyone is in on the game. Often, there's no clear reason for their virality. Sometimes, they just hit the right nerve, VoxNews reported.

The Italian “brainrot” wave began with a video posted by an Italian TikTok user. It featured a blue shark wearing Nike shoes, called Trallalerò trallala. The video, which was generated with AI, accompanied the shark with an absurd and bordering on offensive rhyme, complete blasphemy against God and Allah, and strange character names like “Merdardo” and “Ornella Leçacappella.”

“Brain rot” is the kind of content that messes with your mind, loud, absurd, chaotic, and often completely meaningless. It’s the unhealthy digital food you can’t stop consuming, even though you know it’s destroying your neurons.

At the end of 2024, the Oxford English Dictionary declared ‘brainrot’ its word of the year. According to Oxford University Press, “brainrot” is defined as “the alleged deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially as a result of excessive consumption of material (now especially online content) that is considered irrelevant,” in short, “brain rot.” The term’s use, despite being over a century old, has increased by 230 percent in the past year alone. This increase is largely attributed to the overwhelming presence of absurd content that has flooded TikTok and Instagram, especially among Generation Z and Generation Alpha, writes VoxNews.

Besides Trallalero Trallalà, other main characters are Trippi Troppi Troppa Trippa, a type of trout with hairy wings and a body as overweight as a man. He is considered the undisputed king of the sea. Then there is Brr Brr Patapim, who has human legs, the face of an ape (more precisely, a monkey with a proboscis) and feet made of roots, which give him a kind of wise and ancient aura. Or Ballerina Cappuccina, who is one of the AI-generated Brainrot characters that gained popularity on TikTok. True to her name, this character appears as a young woman with a coffee cup for a head, specializing in ballet. Completely rational.

Most of these characters were originally invented within Italian TikTok, but as the trend began to spread and gain global traction, other countries began to create their own brainrot figures. One of them is Tung Tung Tung Sahur: an anthropomorphic wooden figure holding a stick. The onomatopoeic phrase "tung tung tung" imitates the sound of the bedug, a traditional wooden drum used in Indonesia and Malaysia to signal suhoor - the pre-dawn meal before fasting during Ramadan. According to the "lore" meme, if you ignore the call to suhoor three times, this scary figure will come looking for you.

Since the first videos appeared, countless characters have been created within the brainrot universe - each becoming a kind of protagonist in a massive, chaotic, user-generated movie that plays out across the platform.

Each character has their own story, often intertwined with the others, forming a strange but surprisingly coherent mythology. Take for example the Ballerina Cappuçina - the sister of Espressona Signora. She is an elegant ballerina, hopelessly in love with Lololo, a colleague who only has eyes for ballet, not for her.

Things take another turn when Ninja Cappuccino Assassino falls in love with her and kidnaps her. Surprisingly, she starts to fall in love with him too, and the two get engaged. But the drama doesn't stop there: in one version of the story, Ballerina Cappuçina cheats on him with Trallallero Trallalà.

But beneath the seemingly "meaningless" and ridiculous surface of the mental mess, there is also a political layer that has caused anger in many people, writes VoxNews.

As we have seen, the original rhyme, the one with Trallalero Trallallà, involves two blasphemies - one addressed to God, the other to Allah. At first, people retweeted the videos, sung in Italian, without fully understanding what the lyrics actually said. The absurd visuals and catchy rhythm distracted from the meaning of the words, which were often taken at face value as just another internet joke.

But eventually, some Muslim individuals began speaking out against the “brainrot” trend, highlighting its problematic content. For example, Akhi Altamash posted a video on TikTok warning fellow Muslims about the dangers of sharing “brainrot” content, calling it explicitly haram — forbidden in Islam.

The video, which initially went viral on TikTok, quickly became a hot topic of discussion on the platform and then in the Muslim corner of Reddit, where users debated the problematic nature of its content.

Some users pointed out that in Italy, blasphemy is often used casually as a filler word in everyday speech, and that the original intent was not intended to be Islamophobic or anti-religious.

However, the controversy escalated with the introduction of one of the darkest characters in the story - Bombardiro Crocodilo: a good-natured flying alligator who bombs children in Gaza, Palestine. He doesn't believe in God and enjoys bombing.

Criticism also came from within the Christian community. Pastor Simon Tallur argued in a sermon that the issue with Crocodilo and Tung Tung Sahur was the same as that faced by the ancient heretics, the Monophysites - those who believed in the union of two natures into one mixed nature. In contrast, he emphasized that in Jesus Christ, the two natures are perfectly united. While these criticisms from both religious groups have continued to fuel debate, the trend has now evolved beyond a particular internet quirk.

As the Italian brainchild has gained mainstream attention, it has attracted the interest of major brands such as Ryanair, Loewe and AC Milan, who have included these characters in their advertisements.

For example, Ryanair chose to feature Tung Tung Sahur, Trallalero Trallalà, and Ballerina Cappuçina in their content. However, instead of creating a story, they simply featured these characters on their planes, which caused a backlash from the community. Some users, in fact, expressed concerns, explaining that the content was offensive and asked the airline to stop.

Brainrot content can act as a powerful tool for escaping reality, allowing creators to be expressive and creative in new and unique ways. However, the nature of this type of content can also pave the way for offensive and hateful messages, messages that isolate certain groups of people and perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Brainrot videos first gained popularity for their absurdity and silliness, let them stay that way./ VOXNEWS


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