Almost everyone who looks online knows the image: A man gapes at a passing woman and makes a “How are you?” face that would make Joey Tribbiani blush. Since it emerged in 2017, the “distracted boyfriend” meme — which took that stock photo and projected scenarios onto it — has been seared into the internet’s collective consciousness. Now, artificial intelligence is making the memory of that viral moment blurry, along with memories of dozens of other memes.
Often called “Time Traveler” videos, particularly on TikTok, AI-generated clips currently bouncing around the internet take well-known memes and add context that wasn’t there before. In some cases, they “interrupt” the action; sometimes they include a haunting specter. In the “distracted boyfriend” animation, which was posted in X (formerly known as Twitter) last month, the boyfriend is seen turning around and following the girl who is walking in the opposite direction while his girlfriend stands nearby.
The clip was made using Luma dream machinean AI model that takes source images and text messages and creates high-quality, realistic videos. Within days of its launch releaseSocial media users began borrowing images and frames from recognizable memes to create visuals that put the Dream Machine’s generation capabilities to the test. The results showed that while the AI model isn’t perfect, it does have the ability to rewrite the history of the internet by altering the web’s most enduring images.
As Dream Machine spread, some common images emerged Limitations and failures The model’s results showed some aspects of generative AI, such as unnatural human representations and morphing objects. While some social media users found the images scary and worrying in terms of AI acceleration and its potential to create misinformation, others were amused by the model’s inconsistent errors.
While it may be disconcerting to think that one of these AI-altered memes could go so viral that it eclipses the image that inspired it, Know your meme Editor Phillip Hamilton believes the trend does not pose a major threat to the preservation of digital media. Rather, it is the ubiquity of the originals that makes the new versions work.
“Generally, everyone knows the context,” Hamilton says, referring to the viral images that are being edited. “The iconic nature of the video is the core of the trend… the core of the (time traveler) meme is that popular thing that stops.”
The nature of meme sharing on social media revolves around user interaction with memes. Since most are the result of editing, editing memes with AI is an acceptable activity, Hamilton says.
Luma boasts that Dream Machine can generate 120 frames of high-quality video in under 120 seconds, despite facing significant delays due to extremely high demand. The rapid generation, coupled with the availability of a “free” tier that allows users to generate up to 30 clips per month, has made Dream Machine much more accessible than its OpenAI counterpart, Sora, which, despite being revealed in February, has yet to be released to the public.
