AI is really everywhere nowadays. Although its advocates often talk about how much it helps in our jobs and will do so even more in the future, people also don't shy away from using it to make others laugh. Just think of the "BBL Drizzy" AI-generated hit that was sampled for the "end credits song" to the Kendrick-Drake beef.
Memes are no exception, either. If memes once were the product of the ingenuity of the chronically online, they now can be generated pretty easily by artificial intelligence. You think that's as lazy as making AI do your job for you? Hold your judgment, because, with the help of AI, we might be seeing a surge of a new kind of meme.
In 2024, a video made with the Luma Dream Machine AI model started making rounds on social media. In it, the well-known "Distracted Boyfriend" meme had an upgrade. Someone altered it so now, instead of just looking at another girl, the boyfriend walks away in another direction.
People started playing with other iconic memes and dubbed them "Time traveler" or "Interrupting" memes. The main premise is this: either someone else shows up in the video of the altered iconic meme or the action goes in a completely different direction than was implied originally.
Other notable examples of the Time traveler/Interrupting memes include the "Noice" meme, instead of hearing the man uttering the famous phrase at the end, we see two men in black enter the frame, implying that the man is getting detained. The classic "Charlie bit my finger" video got the AI treatment too. The supposed "Time traveler" stops Charlie from biting his brother's finger.
Even the meme of the lady screaming at a cat got an upgrade. "AI finally settled this beef," one user quipped. The trend soon found a footing on TikTok, with people sharing videos about the time traveler memes. "POV: It's the year 2024 and ancient memes are being tampered with by time travelers," the caption of one video reads.
Some people freaked out over the altered classic memes. "All of these AI videos are making me feel like I'm in a dream and questioning reality," one TikTok user wrote. Culture journalist Kristine Villarroel even wrote a piece for Vice, titled "AI is rewriting meme history." But is there any real danger that we will one day forget such iconic memes?
Know Your Meme editor Phillip Hamilton told Villarroel that these "Time traveler" videos don't pose any real threat to the preservation of meme history. "Generally, everyone knows the context," he pointed out. "The iconicness of the video is at the core of the trend... the core of the [time-traveler] meme is that popular thing being stopped."
