We’ve all been there. You see a video doing the rounds and wonder if it was created with AI tools. But why do we care? Perhaps because we recognize that we’ll only care about a given viral video if it’s real.
Fairly or not, there’s a stereotype that older people—Boomers in particular—can’t tell the difference between real and AI-generated imagery. That idea has spawned a meme spreading through social media right now. And it’s interesting, if only because it’s getting people to do something that rarely happens organically with AI: People are actually sharing the videos.
“Boomers gonna be praising Jesus over this one,” reads the caption of one video that’s been circulating lately.
The video shows a young man riding on an elephant’s back. Before long, we see the elephant take a ramp and achieve physical feats that are clearly impossible.
Boomers gonna be praising Jesus over this one. pic.twitter.com/zoxuo3Us9q
— Angry Tom (@AngryTomtweets) August 30, 2026
The video, shared by an X user called Angry Tom, is interesting because it’s obvious that no one else would’ve shared that video widely if it hadn’t been included as part of a joke at the expense of older people.
But he was far from the first to make that joke. It’s become a trend on TikTok, like in the video below.
The joke has many variations, all showing the most outlandish AI video garbage you can imagine.
This one is probably real though, right?
@doctoryoun Sometimes I get fooled, too 😭😭 . #plasticsurgeon #ai
In some ways, the joke isn’t just on the people who may think these videos are real. The joke is also on AI videos themselves.
Nobody wants to watch this crap unless it’s real. When we witness amazing things that really happened in real life, it instills a sense of wonder in us. We naturally want to see something cute or funny or strange happen. But when we know it’s fake, most people couldn’t care less.
Take this recent example purporting to show a woman performing as a “human statue,” with a baby approaching to give her a kiss on the mouth.
The video, which was posted in earnest by an editor at the right-wing Townhall Media, had real momentum on X until traffic tanked when a Community Note was added to point out that it’s AI. It just doesn’t work unless it’s real. Otherwise, why would you watch something like this?
Life is beautiful. pic.twitter.com/MMEtN40jw5
— L A R R Y (@LarryOConnor) August 30, 2026
That’s part of what makes the current drive for AI-generated images so weird. We might care about Spider-Man doing physically impossible things because those movies include a narrative that makes us invested in the characters. Those avatars of humanity, computer-generated or otherwise, start to become “real” in some way because we can suspend disbelief and immerse ourselves in a story.
Guys like Elon Musk don’t seem to understand this. The billionaire is constantly posting videos that leave most people wondering why we should care. They function as a kind of jangling keys in front of the dimmest people online. Take this video, for instance, that he posted on Aug. 13.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2026
Sure, it’s cringe as hell, but even if you can stomach more than 20 seconds of it, what’s the point? Watching Elon roleplay as a superhero? Or just… staring out a window? Seriously, that’s one of the clips in that video, if you didn’t make it to the end.
“Most of what people consume in five or six years, maybe sooner than that, will be just AI-generated content. So music, videos…” Musk told Joe Rogan last year.
Everyone can get fooled by AI video. And as the technology progresses, it’s going to get much easier to fool people. But it should give everyone pause to think about the role of AI video in our lives. Is it still impressive if you know the video is fake? What do you gain from mindlessly scrolling videos all day long in an environment where more and more videos are made with AI?
The AI industry and people like Musk are banking on you not knowing what’s real and what’s fake. Or, barring that, they’re banking on you being entertained by slop videos of the wealthiest person in the world playing dress up. It’s pretty bleak.
