Every weird AI character in the wave
Four AI characters lead the Sep 2026 wave: Jean Philanthrope, Benjamin Stachio, Archibald Brown and Derek Mercer. All are AI-generated, none has a known creator, and three of the four link a memecoin.
| Character | Look | Platform | First seen | Reach | Coin | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jean Philanthrope | Blond curled bob, curled handlebar moustache, brown houndstooth suit and tie. Shadowboxes in silence on Paris streets, in cafes, parks and galleries. | Instagram, TikTok, X | Sep 17 2026 | 230K+ Instagram followers, 33M TikTok views (Sep 30 2026, Bored Panda) | $JEANPHIL. Solana coin on Pump.fun, launched Sep 20. Lost more than 99% of its value on Sep 21, then traded back up to a $12.2M peak. | Active (Oct 2 2026) |
| Benjamin Stachio | Three stacked moustaches, a neck wider than his head, white shirt, yellow trousers. Dances with friends in bars. | Sep 27 2026 | 90K+ Instagram followers (Oct 2 2026, LADbible) | None | Active (Oct 2 2026) | |
| Archibald Brown | English gentleman in a suit and tie with a twirly moustache, filmed around Britain. Plays Jean Phil’s rival. | Days after Jean Phil | 110K+ Instagram followers (Sep 25 2026, Dexerto) | $ARCHIBROWN. About $450K market cap on Sep 25. Peaked above $1M, then fell to about $125K by Sep 28. | Active (Sep 30 2026) | |
| Derek Mercer | Long hair, exaggerated bodybuilder muscles, gym clips. Captions like "No skinny guys allowed" and "Am I scary?" | Late Sep 2026 | 1,200+ Instagram followers (Sep 25 2026, Dexerto) | $DRMR. About $74K market cap. | Active (Sep 28 2026) | |
| Jade Orlhabit | Appears in Jean Phil clips and promotes $JEANPHIL. Her own look is not described. | Not named | Named Sep 28 2026 | No follower count published (Sep 28 2026, Cointribune) | None | Quiet (Oct 4 2026) |
| Nigel Batt | Black hair in a Lord Farquaad cut. Cointribune says he has his own token. | Not named | Named Sep 28 2026 | No follower count published (Sep 28 2026, Cointribune) | Cointribune says he has his own token. It does not name the ticker. | Quiet (Oct 4 2026) |
| Brigitte Macaron | Named in the Jean Phil wave. Her look is not described. | Not named | Named Oct 2 2026 | 16 million views in 3 days, per a creator thread (Oct 2 2026, Top5Apps) | None | Quiet (Oct 4 2026) |
| Tung Tung Tung Sahur | A wooden log with a face, holding a wooden bat. Named for the drum calls that wake people for the pre-dawn sahur meal. | TikTok | Feb 2025 | 136M plays on the original TikTok (Oct 4 2026, TikTok) | None | Active (Oct 4 2026) |
| Tralalero Tralala | A three-legged shark wearing Nike sneakers. The first Italian brainrot character to go viral. | TikTok | Jan 2025 | 7M+ views on the first viral repost (Jan 13 2025, Wikipedia) | None | Active (Oct 4 2026) |
| Brr Brr Patapim | A monkey and tree hybrid with a mossy trunk body and huge bare feet. | TikTok | Feb 17 2025 | 19.5M plays on the original TikTok (Oct 4 2026, TikTok) | None | Active (Oct 4 2026) |
| Ballerina Cappuccina | A ballerina in a tutu and pointe shoes with a cappuccino mug for a head. | TikTok | Mar 19 2025 | 19.5M views in its first three weeks (Apr 2025, Know Your Meme) | None | Deleted (Oct 4 2026) |
| Chimpanzini Bananini | A chimpanzee whose body is a peeled banana. | TikTok | Mar 13 2025 | 56.8M plays on the original TikTok (Oct 4 2026, TikTok) | None | Active (Oct 4 2026) |
| Cappuccino Assassino | A ninja with a coffee cup for a head and a pair of blades. | TikTok | Mar 5 2025 | 11.2M plays on the original TikTok (Oct 4 2026, TikTok) | None | Active (Oct 4 2026) |
| Trippi Troppi | A cat with a shrimp body. Also used for a pot-bellied creature with a fish for a head. | TikTok | Feb 18 2025 | 5.7M plays on the original TikTok (Oct 4 2026, TikTok) | None | Active (Oct 4 2026) |
| Lirili Larila | An elephant and cactus hybrid wearing sandals, walking through a desert. | TikTok | Feb 28 2025 | 61M plays on its most-watched TikTok (Oct 4 2026, TikTok) | None | Active (Oct 4 2026) |
| La Vaca Saturno Saturnita | A cow whose body carries the planet Saturn, ring and all. | TikTok | Feb 6 2025 | 5.8M plays on the original TikTok (Oct 4 2026, TikTok) | None | Active (Oct 4 2026) |
| Boneca Ambalabu | A frog and tyre hybrid standing on human legs. | TikTok | Feb 2 2025 | 13.5M plays on the original TikTok (Oct 4 2026, TikTok) | None | Active (Oct 4 2026) |
Three more names sit beside the four. Cointribune names Jade Orlhabit, who appears in Jean Phil clips and promotes $JEANPHIL, and Nigel Batt, a black-haired Farquaad type with his own token. Top5Apps adds Brigitte Macaron, a name a creator thread credited with 16 million views. None of the three has a published account.
What a brand can take from the wave
The part worth copying is the brief, not the coin and not the face. One look that reads in a thumbnail, one gesture, a new ordinary place every post.
- One look. Hair, one facial feature, one outfit. Jean Phil is the bob, the moustache and the brown suit. Benjamin Stachio is three moustaches and yellow trousers.
- One gesture. Jean Phil shadowboxes and never speaks. Benjamin dances in bars. Archibald Brown calls Jean Phil out. Derek Mercer posts gym clips. None of them does a second bit.
- A new place. The street, the cafe, the park, the bar. The face and the outfit stay. The location is the only thing that changes.
- Leave the coin. Dexerto describes the wave as a persona, a visual joke, a fake feud, then a token. A brand keeps the first two. Benjamin Stachio has no coin and still passed 90,000 followers.
A talking presenter for an ad is a different search from these characters. That page is the AI avatar generator.
- more brand-awareness lift when a brand character shows up in the first 2 seconds
- 57%
- System1 and TikTok, 887 ads
- Jean Phil Instagram followers in under two weeks
- 230K
- Bored Panda
- from Jean Phil’s first post to Benjamin Stachio’s
- 10 days
- Know Your Meme, Dexerto
The same brief does not guarantee the reach. Jean Phil passed 230,000 followers. Derek Mercer, same wave and a coin in the bio, was at about 1,200. A look people have never seen outperforms a gym guy.
Brands have run a recurring character for a century. Pringles, Duolingo, the Geico gecko. What changed in 2026 is the cost. It needs a character sheet and a clip tool, and a new episode every week costs what one shoot used to.
Why it works in ads, with the examples, is in the weird AI character wave. The hooks that stop the scroll are in ad hooks.
How to make an AI character like Jean Phil
No Higgsfield, no Runway. ChatGPT draws the character sheet, Seedance generates a reference clip in Jean Phil's format, and one Seedance API call swaps your character into it. The sheet is what keeps the face the same from clip to clip, which is the whole trick behind Jean Phil.
Have ChatGPT draw the character sheet
Paste this into ChatGPT: "An original deadpan gentleman: a tweed three-piece suit, a towering silver quiff and round tinted glasses. He never speaks and always shadowboxes. Make it a character reference sheet: front, three-quarter and walking side profile on one plain off-white background, same lighting and scale in every view." Keep the image. It is the only reference you will give the video model, on every clip.
A fuller sheet: four full-body views, then four heads. The wig, the shirt, the tie, the shorts and the briefcase stay put in every frame. Get a Seedance API key
Seedance 2.0 runs on BytePlus ModelArk. Turning it on takes $30 of credits or a resource pack. Create an API key there and keep it asARK_API_KEY. That key is the whole toolchain: no editor, no subscription to a video app.
API keys in the BytePlus ModelArk console. Create API Key is the blue button. Save it as ARK_API_KEY. Generate the reference clip
Prompt the motion and the setting, not the face: "Man in a tweed suit shadowboxing alone on a Paris street at dusk, deadpan, handheld phone camera, vertical 9:16, 8 seconds." Generate a few and keep the one with the best motion. Make it on your own account: Seedance refuses reference videos with real human faces, and a clip it made for you in the last 30 days is the exception.
Seedance, set to a vertical 9:16 clip at 720p for 8 seconds. The prompt box is where the motion and the setting go. Swap your character in
Send one task to Seedance with the sheet as thereference_image, the clip as thereference_video, and this prompt: "Replace the man in Video 1 with the character in Image 1. Keep the camera move, framing and timing from Video 1. Keep the character identical to Image 1." Poll the task until it succeeds and download the video within 24 hours. Check the hands and the outline before you keep it.
Omni reference is the Seedance mode that takes the character sheet and the reference clip in one generation. On the API those are reference_image and reference_video. Post the same character every week
One clip is a meme. The same character in a new setting every week is a mascot. The recognition compounds.
Jeff D'La Cross. Five posts, one look: the cross, the pink shirt, the green tie.
Step by step with real outputs: how to make a character reference sheet, keeping one AI character consistent and the Italian brainrot generator. The full request, with the exact JSON, the polling loop and three original reference sheets, is in how to make an AI mascot. Why the wave works in ads is in the weird AI character wave. What each clip tool costs per finished ad is in AI video tools for ads, and Seedance against Kling is in Kling vs Seedance.
How to tell if a viral character is AI
Look at the account, not the video. Every character in this wave had an account history that did not match, a body no human has, and no life outside the clips.
- Username changes. Jean Phil's account was created in June 2025 and renamed six times before it became jean_philanthrope.
- Impossible anatomy. Three moustaches. A neck wider than the head. Muscles no gym makes.
- No voice. They do not talk, do not do interviews, do not tag friends.
- A coin in the bio. Three of the four link a memecoin. A real influencer links a shop.
Before Jean Phil: Italian brainrot
The 2025 wave was Italian brainrot: AI creatures like Tralalero Tralala, the shark in Nike sneakers. Ryanair, KFC and Duolingo all joined in within weeks.
Frequently asked questions
What are the weird AI characters on TikTok?
AI-generated personas like Jean Philanthrope, Benjamin Stachio, Archibald Brown and Derek Mercer. They appeared in Sep 2026, each with one absurd look and one repeated bit, and most link a memecoin.
Who started the AI character trend?
Jean Philanthrope (Jean Phil), an AI-generated Frenchman who first posted on Instagram on Sep 17 2026 and passed 230,000 followers in under two weeks.
Which AI characters have memecoins?
Jean Phil ($JEANPHIL), Archibald Brown ($ARCHIBROWN) and Derek Mercer ($DRMR). Benjamin Stachio says he has no crypto affiliation yet. Cointribune says Nigel Batt has his own token and does not name it, and that Jade Orlhabit promotes $JEANPHIL.
Can brands use AI characters like Jean Phil in ads?
Yes, with their own. Copy the brief: one look, one gesture, a new place every post. Leave his face and leave the memecoin.
Want a recurring character in your ads every week?
Director by Sprites is a full creative team for your ads. Every Monday you get finished, on-brand video ads, reviewed by a human, with your own character in them. You pick the winners. Sprites ships the campaigns.