The Jensen Huang memes: Is this AI grievance or AI embrace? | usagoldmines.com

The memes have been ricocheting across social media, impossible to miss if you follow tech or business or are simply an algorithmic target for silly stuff. The first one that caught my eye was the Jensen Huang-as-Nathan Fielder parody that reimagines the trailer from “You Can See Everything”.

It’s just too perfect. The dialogue and sound design from Fielder’s movie remain intact, but Nathan and Elizabeth Holmes are perfectly face-swapped with Jensen and Alice Huang AI slop. Every micro-movement in their facial expressions matches the original trailer perfectly — because that’s what AI slop does with impressive precision.

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.

You can see the rebellion in a video zinging Nvidia’s tanking stock price. You can see it in an AI mockumentary that imagines Jensen as Dunder-Mifflin’s worst new employee. You can see it in a brainrot AI takedown that impales Jensen for Nvidia’s abandonment of PC gaming.

I can share many more examples, but the sheer volume speaks to something different. Even the New York Times noticed the memes have crossed a threshold. The question I keep going back to is whether the memes are a warm embrace of AI tools or a nuanced criticism of AI writ large.

The superposition of AI grievance and AI embrace

Of course, there’s no clear answer to the question. Depending on your perspective as a meme creator, you can fall on either side of the aisle, or (more likely) hold two ideas in your head at once.

I sent a Twitter DM to @AlexesNakamoto, the creator of the “You Can See Everything” meme, asking him if he’s generally pro-AI and a Jensen supporter, or alternately, whether he sees Jensen memes as mocking Jensen’s hubris. He hasn’t replied.

But does it even matter? The meme is now effectively public property. We decide its meaning. Personally, I have a handful of beefs with AI, but have never had strong feelings about Jensen Huang, even though his company has turned its back on gaming GPUs, a technology near and dear to PCWorld’s heart.

So, I’ll just sit back and enjoy this morning’s new crop of Jensen memes. I’ll admire the delicious irony of using AI tools to roast the AI tool maker. And I’ll mark the Jensen memes down as collective evidence that AI slop, however sloppy it may be, is capable of a much larger cultural relevance. I don’t like Warhol’s soup cans, but I live for the debate on what they represent.