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What Are The 'Italian Brainrot Animals?' The AI Memes Like 'Bombardiro Crocodilo' Taking Over TikTok Explained
Italian Brainrot is characterized by a series of weird AI art showing animal-object hybrids, flame explosion effects and a voiceover that shouts gibberish like, "Tralalero Tralala" and "Bombardiro Crocodilo."
The odd genre of AI-generated memes has seemingly taken over TikTok on an international level, spreading far outside the country of Italy where the trend supposedly originates from.
How did so-called "brainrot" get to this point? Who's making these and where did they come from? Let's explain.
Where Did The 'Italian Brainrot Animals' Come From?
The trend started in January 2025 when an AI voice audio reciting, "Tralalero Tralala," went viral on TikTok. Unfortunately, the suspected creator of the trend has had their account deleted and the original video is, at this moment in time, lost media.
Regardless, meme creators have replicated the original, which showed an AI-generated image of a shark wearing shoes. The Italian voice-over is emotionally delivered by the robotic voice. It name-drops Allah, someone's grandma and playing Fortnite for some reason.
@amoamimandy.1a Tralalelo tralala🔥 #tralalelo#tralalero#borcoidium#borcala ♬ suono originale – eZburger401
What Is The 'Italian Brainrot Animal' Tier List?
There have been so many new animals added to the existing Italian Brainrot lore since the original. Take Bombardiro Crocodilo for example. It shows a crocodile that's a bomber plane. It's one of the more popular iterations. However, that doesn't mean it's everyone's favorite.
Many TikTokers and YouTubers have compiled tier lists that rank every animal.
For instance, TikToker @tjantv shared his ranking last week. He ended up putting five of the characters in his top tier, including, Tralalero Tralala, Bombardiro Crocodilo, Lirili Larila, Frulli Frulla and Trulimero Trulicina.
@tjantv Italian Brainrot Tierlist 😭 | 📸 IG: tjantv | #tierlist #brainrot #italianbrainrot #bombardirocrocodilo ♬ Spooky, quiet, scary atmosphere piano songs – Skittlegirl Sound
Why Are 'Italian Brainrot Animals' A Meme?
The Italian Brainrot trend seems to stem from Germany's version of brainrot that went viral on TikTok last year.
The videos didn't use AI animals, but the nonsense captions, spoken in German, did replicate the later Italian copycat.
@schnecke_123 Taube im Aldi #fyp #deutschememes #taube #aldi #einkaufen ♬ Originalton – Schnecke123
The genre of brainrot itself is often difficult to define. It's largely understood as any form of content that "rots the brain" of the viewer. This means that the content is nonsensical, low-effort and degenerate, ultimately providing no substance and, instead, being a hindrance to the world.
Precursor terms like "Zoomer humor" have tried to define young people's insistence on dumb, meaningless jokes being funny but onlookers watching the whole thing might bring up that famed VeggieTales quote, "In the future, entertainment will be randomly generated."
Similar aesthetics like "lobotomy," "slop" and "hood irony" come close to brainrot and one could argue that all those genres also rot the noggin.
For the full history of Italian Brainrot AI Animals, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's entry for even more information.
