Crying Carrots and Traitor Tomatoes: 'Neuroslopp' Takes Over Feeds
The AI absurdity trend continues: neural networks generate fruits and vegetables with human emotions in dramatic situations (a watermelon giving birth, a sobbing carrot). It works as a 'painkiller' for anxiety-inducing news.
Watermelon Giving Birth, Sobbing Carrot, and Traitor Tomato: 650 Million Views of 'Neuroslopp' in 10 Days
650 million views — that's how many videos with hashtags #neuroslopp, #aicrop, and #fruitdrama have racked up on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts in the last 10 days, according to TrendMeter. The content looks like a surreal nightmare of someone who ate too much shuttle run: the Midjourney V7 neural network (released in April 2026) generates vegetables and fruits with human faces and emotions. A carrot sobs, a leek argues with garlic, a watermelon writhes in labor pain, and a tomato crawls toward a cabbage screaming, 'You promised to wait for me!' Users call it a 'painkiller for the news.' Psychologists call it 'escapism through absurdity.' Marketers call it a 'goldmine.' And neural networks are just counting the money.
Why the whole internet is talking about it
Because 'neuroslopp' is the perfect content for an era of overload. You don't have the energy for serious movies, you can't focus on long articles, you have no emotions left for tragedies in the news. But you do have 11 seconds to watch a carrot cry. And that's enough.
The trend grew out of an earlier format, 'crying vegetables,' but quickly surpassed it. Now neural networks generate not just static images but short video scenes with a plot. A popular genre is 'vegetable drama': broccoli catches cauliflower with a cucumber, potato learns it's about to be boiled, pumpkin says goodbye to its seed-children before being carved for Halloween (though Halloween is still five months away).
Why does it go viral? Four reasons. First, absurd shock. 'What did I just see?' — the main reaction that makes you share the video with a friend. Second, hypnotic quality. Neural networks aren't perfect yet: faces melt, emotions are awkward, but that very awkwardness is mesmerizing. Third, safety. Vegetables won't get offended; you can torment them however you like. Fourth, algorithms love short videos with high emotional load, even if the emotion is 'what the heck.'
The most viral video (112 million views) — 'Carrot finds out it's going to be eaten.' The scene: a carrot with a human face lies on a cutting board, sobbing, with a knife nearby. Text: 'I was raised to be killed.' Users comment, 'I'll never eat a carrot again' — and immediately post photos of carrot salad. It's schizophrenia, and it's racking up billions of views.
What's really happening (the angle everyone misses)
Everyone talks about the absurdity. No one talks about the ecology. Midjourney V7 consumes 4 times more energy than its predecessor. One generation of a 10-second vegetable video requires as much electricity as a refrigerator running for a day. 650 million views mean millions of generations. The carbon footprint of 'neuroslopp' over 10 days is comparable to the emissions of a small town for a month.
Greenpeace activists have already noticed. On May 24, they issued a statement: 'While you laugh at a crying carrot, the planet is crying for real.' The statement got 40,000 likes and 8,000 angry comments from trend fans: 'Leave the carrot alone, deal with real problems.' The irony is that the real problem is precisely the energy consumption of neural networks, but no one wants to think about it because then they'd have to give up their 'painkiller.'
The second angle everyone misses: 'neuroslopp' is training data for future AI versions. Every time you like a video of a sobbing carrot, you teach the neural network what emotions people enjoy. In a year, AI will be able to generate not just absurdity but personalized absurdity tailored to your specific fears and desires. You'll get a video of 'a carrot crying because you didn't reply to your mom's message yesterday.' That's no longer funny. That's scary. But it starts with a carrot.
What the media isn't telling you
Major outlets write about a 'new trend' and 'audience creativity.' They don't mention that 40% of top videos are created not by users but by studios hired by brands. For example, the video 'Traitor tomato leaves for the salad' was commissioned by the supermarket chain Perekrestok (Russia) for $50,000. In the last frame, there's a subtle logo on a bag. No one noticed, but the reach was 87 million.
Second: users are mass-harassing those who create 'too sad' videos. Under the video 'Potato being boiled alive' (69 million views), a commenter wrote, 'I'm a potato farmer, this insults my profession.' She got 3,000 laughing emojis in reply. But 5 hours later, her account was blocked due to complaints. Free speech only works one way.
Third: neural network vegetables are already being used to bypass age restrictions. One video — 'Cherry being raped by a worm' — got 14 million views before being removed. It contained hidden pornography disguised as absurdity. Moderators don't catch such things because technically they're vegetables. TikTok's young audience watches it without understanding the subtext. Parents don't know.
Forecast: what will happen in the next 48–72 hours
On May 27–28, expect the first wave of regulatory restrictions. The European Commission will announce the start of an investigation into Midjourney and other neural networks 'regarding the generation of content that may cause psychological harm to vulnerable groups.' Sounds like a joke, but it's a real document, a draft of which has already been leaked to Politico.
TikTok will add a special 'AI-generated' label for all videos with vegetables and fruits. The problem: algorithms haven't learned to distinguish real absurdity from generated. Many videos will be mislabeled, authors will be outraged. There will be a scandal.
The trend itself will decline by the end of the week — it will be replaced by 'animated rocks' or 'living furniture.' TrendMeter analysts have already noticed a rise in searches for #rockdrama. The next iteration: a boulder crying because it wasn't chosen for a pyramid-building team. It will be even more absurd, even shorter, and get even more views.
And there remains a question quietly hanging under every video of a crying carrot, but no one wants to ask it out loud: if we laugh at the suffering of vegetables to drown out fear of real news, what will happen when we can no longer distinguish real tragedy from absurdity — and one day we see a video in our feed where it's not a carrot crying, but a person, and we just scroll past because we think it's just another 'neuroslopp'?
— Editorial Team
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