If you were to ask a younger sibling or a particularly snot-nosed cousin about “brainrot,” you’d probably be met with giggles. You’d soon find out that brainrot is en vogue.

Brainrot is a trend characterized by nonsensical and low-quality AI memes whose features can range from a ballerina with cappuccino for a head to a crocodile plane zoomorph.

Due to its easily digestible and irrational nature, brainrot memes are most enjoyed by adolescents.

The Italian-originating characters were the innovators of the AI fad and have quickly propagated others just like them, especially on platforms such as TikTok and Roblox.

However, there have been precursors to the modern-day manifestations of brainrot, from “rizz,” to “Skibidi Toilet” and even dating back to the “Annoying Orange.”

However, brainrot has taken on new extremes in the age of AI and unsupervised children on the internet.

What started as a reflection of a generation’s humor has given rise to AI memes that promote violence and bigotry to its underage audience via its unsustainable means.

The unregulated and limitless potential of AI generation has already proven to be more costly than what we’d expect.

Massive AI data centers that use water and electricity on a grand scale are only getting more ambitious as AI becomes more commonplace.

With more and more methods of generating AI media available to the general public, the cultural imprint AI leaves on our society widens.

It stands to reason that, like any other media, not all AI can be good-intentioned.

AI brainrot memes, specifically, are effective promoters of exposing children to violence.

Dramatized violence is especially prevalent in a TikTok series coined as “AI Cats.”

These short-form videos most often consist of soap opera-esque storylines, except much worse.

Subjects can range from domestic violence, explicit suggestion, child (or feline) neglect and criminal activity, most often committed by black-furred cats.

While this may seem no different from what already roams the web, these kinds of AI entertainment functionally normalize racial stereotypes and sexual fetishization at a young age.

Children understand the world as it goes on around them and act accordingly.

When their perception of the world is built on the foundation AI brainrot lays for them, an entire generation is raised on principles of bigotry and violence.

It’s time to draw the line in the sand that says that the evolving landscape of an AI internet will not parent this generation for us.

The future deserves at least that.