On TikTok, a new video series called “Fruit Love Island” has recently gained popularity. The videos in the series are generated by the app Sora AI and are a parody of “Love Island”, the reality TV dating show, only with anthropomorphic fruits as characters instead of real people.
The characters mimic “Love Island” activities and ceremonies, like recoupling (choosing partners) and dumping (eliminating contestants). Most of the storylines are fairly generic for “reality TV”, including love triangles, fights and breakups.
The characters—such as Bananito, Cherrita, Mangella, Coconick and others—even have fans, nearly being treated like celebrities. There are now “Which “Fruit Love Island” Contestant Are You?” Buzzfeed quizzes and “Your Birth Month, Your Fruit Love Island Character” slideshows on TikTok. Welch’s also featured Fruit Love Island characters in their April Fool’s prank, joking that they would be coming out with fruit snack flavors inspired by each contestant.
The creator of the series, [@ai.cinema021], has become one of the fastest growing accounts on TikTok, gaining three million followers in just nine days. The series even got the attention of celebrities, Zara Larsson and Joe Jonas both admitting via TikTok posts that they tuned into “Fruit Love Island.”
However, the series has since faced backlash and a loss of followers. Many people are against generative AI due to its environmental costs; therefore, this entirely AI generated episode series gaining popularity sparked outrage.
Not only are people upset about the usage of AI generated media for environmental reasons, but also for the sake of keeping the arts alive. Instead of consuming real, complex artworks made by humans, people are learning to be entertained by meaningless AI content.
“People were dumb enough already, we didn’t need AI to generate our brainrot,” Sarah Knudtson, art teacher said.
Other than the fact that AI produces lower quality work, it can also diminish human effort and creativity by copying it. Platforms like Sora steal ideas and styles from artworks made by real people, with “Fruit Love Island” as a perfect example.
“Real TV actually has actors and people that work very hard to produce these shows; Their hard work should be credited, and they should get publicity instead of fake AI characters,” Remy Rostad, freshman said.
Since these controversies, [@ai.cinema021] faced bans from TikTok content moderators. While TikTok has not explicitly stated why they removed 12 episodes from the account, many have assumed that it was for a variety of reasons: mass-reporting, copyright allegations and inappropriate content. The account is losing supporters as opposition to generative AI grows, falling to under three million followers.
Despite these video bans and complaints from the public, [@ai.cinema021] continues to post and defend themselves. The account has posted multiple stories expressing that they do not care about the environmental effects of generative AI, as well as arguing that generating the Fruit Love Island episodes takes hard work.
“Guys I’m losing motivation. These videos take so long and the image and animation gen is getting so bad! I’m so sorry! Also so much hate and all my vids removed is so tough. We’ll get through it,” [@ai.cinema021] said in a TikTok comment.
Even though AI generated videos have sparked controversy on TikTok prior to Fruit Love Island, the series in particular has split the platform’s users between two sides.
