The Jensen Huang memes: Is this AI grievance or AI embrace?
But put aside the sublime technical execution of the meme. And put aside the perfect cultural synergy between the movie everyone’s talking about and the Jensen spectacle that commands the week’s news cycle.
What really strikes me about the meme — and not just this meme, but also the avalanche of similar AI-generated memes authored at Jensen’s expense — is that they represent two things at once. On one side of the ledger, the Jensen memes are a celebration of AI creator tools, a mass pop-art movement that explores a new medium with giddy excitement. And on the other side of the ledger, the memes are a hearty middle finger to AI.
From AI NSYNC to AI Dunder-Mifflin
We can scroll through our vertical video platform of choice and giggle at the cleverness, the sheer madcap zaniness, of Jensen and Alice dancing to NSYNC. Because sometimes AI slop is just good, simple fun. Indeed, if you can’t laugh at a video of Jensen getting his ankles broken by Alice Huang on the basketball court, then please just lighten up.
Or how about Napoleon Dynamite reimagined with Jensen, Alice and Elon? Jensen as Kip. The videocard toss. It’s slop, yes, but it also might be art. Warhol appropriated Campbell’s soup cans, and while he’s not universally admired, we still see his project as something bigger than a simple rip-off.
But the Jensen memes aren’t just any old slop memes. The target matters, and the memes point to an indictment of all that Jensen has come to represent. To many people, he’s a living totem for every shitty thing about AI: tech oligarchy excess, datacenters, RAM shortages and more.
And so, through this veritable avalanche of AI slop, Jensen meets his comeuppance. And to toss more irony on the fire, Jensen’s critics are using the AI slop tools that Nvidia helped enable to mercilessly roast the man. It’s sort of like Spartacus and his rebels turning the Roman legionaries’ weapons against Rome.
