Along the way, the aesthetic and style of these videos began to change. Designer Bob’s early viral renovation videos were silly, but could sometimes be mistaken for genuine design content. The newer videos were more ridiculous, the revamps more fantastical, and their action was narrated by a monotone AI voice. That’s how TikTok remix culture works, says Alex Turvy, who studies digital culture.
“We’re going to see trends like this become more and more absurd until they disappear,” he says.
There’s even a spin-off meme specifically about “galvanized square steel”, to the point that some users have disputed If the whole meme is a viral marketing campaign for galvanized steel.
“Believe science is a very good word to use here. Now the videos explode and work well. because there is a lot of tradition around it,” says Karten. “Tradition sustains virality.”
The more I watched these videos, the more desperate I became to understand who was making them. In the case of designer Bob, the account bio links to a online candle and crystal store run by a China-based company called Whisper Wisp. And designer Bob’s Facebook page lists Hong Kong as a base in the Page transparency section. Still, it seems unlikely that this is a covert marketing campaign for a candle store. None of Whisper Wisp’s social channels are as popular as Designer Bob’s account. (Whisper Wisp did not respond to any of my messages.)
Details about who is behind the Dy02449xjp account are even scarcer. there is a facebook page with the same username sharing the same videos. Beyond that, nothing. There are no other accounts connected, no storefronts or identifying information. If a scam or upsell is coming, it hasn’t subsided yet. At least for now, Dy02449xjp appears to be pursuing TikTok engagement for herself.
Many of these accounts use some variation of the name “House designs” and similar small house logos, which look a lot like the branding of an architecture and interior design program called HomeDesignsAI—an important clue, I thought, to solving the mystery. I was able to track down HomeDesignsAI’s COO and co-founder, Denis Madroane. But I was just as confused as everyone else about how popular these renovation TikToks have become.
HomeDesignsAI is a Romania-based startup that launched in 2023. The app allows users to upload a photo of a room or floor plan and transform it using AI. Madroane says he started seeing TikToks using HomeDesignsAI last year. He says he and his team thought they were pretty fun, but they don’t see many advantages.
Madroane confirmed that Home-DesignsAI has a TikTok account, although he doesn’t actually participate in memes. He has just under 900 followers and his top video has around 195,000 views. Which seems fine, until you compare it to the unofficial Home-DesignsAI accounts on TikTok. The greatest, @homedesign369He has 2.4 million followers and consistently gets millions of views per video.
“Our official account is significantly underperforming compared to the figures averaged by user-generated content,” Madroane acknowledges.
But it turns out that none of the most viral Little John TikToks were created with HomeDesignsAI software. So, unsolved mystery. And before this summer, no one on TikTok seemed to know where these videos were coming from. That is, until Candise Lin, a US-based Cantonese and Mandarin teacher, noticed the trend going viral and revealed the missing piece of the puzzle, at least for confused Americans, in a TikTok video of her own. .