About

We Need to Kill AI Artist is a series of exploitable memes in which a speech bubble reading "We need to kill AI artist" is attributed to a character, often from an anime, video game or cartoon series. The original version of the meme was posted by X / Twitter user @AccurstMaiden in December 2023 and features the character Yusuke Kitagawa from Persona 5. The meme became increasingly popular over the following years, with some versions altering the caption to read "We need to X," with "X" being something that needs killed or otherwise changed. Versions of the meme are often used as reaction images to call out and criticize AI-generated art.

Origin

On December 24th, 2023, X^[1] user @AccurstMaiden posted a meme consisting of an image of Yusuke Kitagawa from Persona 5 with a speech bubble saying, "We need to kill AI artist," garnering over 19,000 likes and 4,000 reposts in just over a year. This is the earliest known example of the meme.

It is possibly inspired by posts to the subreddit /r/Persona5^[2] earlier that year wondering if Yusuke would be against AI art, such as a post by Redditor u/Local_Neighborhood50 made that August that garnered over 2,500 upvotes and 300 comments in roughly two years.

Spread

The meme garnered viral spread over the following months, inspiring edits. On June 3rd, 2024, X^[3] user @lyche3z posted a version of the meme featuring Shinonome Ena from Project SEKAI, Yusuke and Rohan from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in response to a user sharing alleged AI art, garnering over 45,000 likes in 10 months.

On June 26th, X^[4] user @MinMonCinnaBun posted a version of the meme in response to a user posting the original meme that depicts Ann from Persona 5 saying that we need to kill child predators, garnering over 13,000 likes in the same rough span of time.

On July 16th, X^[5] user @Pag0g0P posted a redraw of the original meme, garnering over 7,700 likes in nine months. On November 13th, X^[6] user @SENSOnene posted a version of the meme featuring Shinonome Ena in response to alleged AI art, garnering over 33,000 likes in five months.

On November 23rd, 2024, Redditor u/RollieTheRoller posted a version of the meme to the subreddit /r/JOJOLANDS^[7] that gained over 1,100 upvotes in five months. On November 26th, X^[8] user @nishikizo posted a version of the meme replacing Yusuke with Kazuma Kiryu from the Yakuza series, garnering over 10,000 likes in five months.

On March 11th, 2025, Redditor u/I_drank_the_Rusteez posted an edit of the original meme to the subreddit /r/DefendingAIArt^[9] titled "I got tired of seeing that stupid 'We need to kill AI artist' image so I made this in 2 minutes to vent a bit," in which Yusuke speaks out against calling for the death of AI artists, garnering over 300 upvotes in a month.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References