AI-generated “brain rot” videos, surreal clips featuring characters like a shark in sneakers, Cock on sneakers, or a ballerina with a cappuccino for a head are exploding in popularity, especially among younger audiences.
Leading the charge is OpenArt, a startup founded in 2022 by two former Google employees, now boasting roughly 3 million monthly active users. Its latest open beta feature, One-Click Story, lets users turn a sentence, script, or even a song into a one-minute video with a full story arc. Content can range from lighthearted TikTok skits to explainer videos or music videos for YouTube and even ads.
Users can choose from three templates, Character Vlog, Music Video, or Explainer and fine-tune results with a storyboard editor. OpenArt integrates more than 50 AI models, including DALL·E 3, GPT, Imagen, Flux Kontext, and Stable Diffusion, giving creators flexibility in visual style.
While the tool lowers the barrier to AI storytelling, it also raises ethical and legal concerns. Some “Character Vlog” options risk intellectual property infringement, with fictional icons like Pikachu or SpongeBob occasionally slipping past filters. Co-founder and CEO Coco Mao says the company aims to block such use but is open to licensing talks with major IP holders.
One of OpenArt’s key selling points is character consistency, ensuring the same visual identity across a video, a common flaw in other AI tools. The roadmap includes adding multi-character conversations and launching a mobile app.
OpenArt operates on a credit-based subscription model, starting at $14/month, and has raised $5 million from Basis Set Ventures and DCM Ventures. The company reports positive cash flow and projects over $20 million in annual revenue.
