Broccoli Man, Remastered

[TheGamerUncle]

>I am not the kind of person who thinks AI will replace actors blah blah blah. But I am glad these tools exist, because this video wouldn’t exist without AI.

>In no world would I ever have put together a real cast and crew to remake a 15 year old inside joke video for Googlers, but I was able to make it with AI.

BUT IT DID !! and part of the charm is that this involved real people talking, mutual understanding and a shared culture. That world existed it can still exist unless we surrender to the depravity of conformity and comfortability.

[PlanksVariable]

Have you ever watched the original? It most certainly did not involve real people talking (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t6L-FlfeaI).

In fact, the overtly robotic voices added to the humor of the original, IMO. It was lost in this translation.

[shadowgovt]

The original video existed because Xtranormal.com lets you transform a written script into an auto-generated scene with procedurally-puppeted wireframed stock models and text-to-speech voice acting.

Any assertion that the world in which Broccoli Man was created was fundamentally different (in terms of "relying on someone else's framework to do a low-effort meme") from today is nostaglia. In fact, I suspect mbleigh spent more time on making the recreation work than was spent on the original Broccoli Man video.

[boplicity]

So much of what makes people willing to be moved by creative art is the willingness to believe they're investing in someone else's real thoughts & effort -- and opening themselves to a channel of real human connection & relationship.

AI has raised the bar, in terms of making it more difficult to create the trust necessary for people to be willing to open themselves up to that connection.

[xgulfie]

ugh but that requires like, effort

[graypegg]

> In no world would I ever have put together a real cast and crew [...]

3 people, the phone with the best camera across those 3 people, and some costumes that aren't THAT had to recreate? Honestly could even skip the costumes and just print out two A4 sheets with orange bamboo shoots and broccoli and tape them to your shirt and I would honestly get a better kick out of that. It's fun to make stuff with friends, even if it's a bit crap!

Saying that, I don't think anyone making something with AI discourages anyone else from doing something with the joke, so I think all this has really replaced is a video the author would not have made otherwise... but they should try anyway! They're missing out on what would be a fun afternoon with friends

[efficax]

the deadpan emotionless delivery of the original memes are an important part of their humor. this remaster looks fancy but loses the entire spirit of the thing

[cflewis]

"only if you are Yahoo!" is one of the best line reads of all time.

[underdeserver]

It's differently good. Impressive (but less funny).

[mbleigh]

Yeah, it does lose something in the more realistic performances. Was still fun to play with though!

[morshu9001]

Yeah, the only way this is funnier is when the AI does something weird

[1970-01-01]

Agreed. It's completely lost its original charm. This is AI slop.

[parpfish]

I would have kicked up the 4d3d3d3. Maybe thrown in a hat wobble.

[fugalfervor]

I thought/hoped that's what this thread was about.

[flannell]

“Paul, your wife is calling. It is an emergency.”

“Later. We’ve got a lot of work to do”

[wpm]

Computer, load up Celery Man.

Now that I think of it, that skit was incredibly prescient. You can literally ask Gemini for more hat wobble now.

[bigyabai]

Now, Tayne I can get into.

[haburka]

I do wish they updated this to 2026 google! I don’t think it would be nearly as interesting though since they do get rid of most red tape but since everything is enterprise scale, it’s never easy.

[hiddencost]

Huh?

The bureaucracy is way worse. BCID requirements. MDBs that take 4+ hours to roll out. The Byzantine array of different MDB group types, often with two party control. GDPR company compliance. Tagging proto fields with provenance. Documents are private by default now. Most support happens in chat groups, and is if you're not at deepmind your help requests are getting ignored. Spending a month filing GUTS tickets to get your intern access to basic tools. XManager idle pruning. GCP automated boq setup/teardown tools usually fail and you have to fall back to getting support from a contractor 12 time zones away.

[jeffbee]

"No one has borgmon readability. Just me." is about a specific person at a specific moment and it knocks me off my stool every time.

[pjjw]

bless, but hearing people say this version is "better" makes me want to walk into the sea.

[ahoka]

I want to see MongoDB is webscale as a sequel.

[im3w1l]

This didn't capture the emotional tone as I perceived it in the original. I thought Brocoliman was supposed to be someone who had drunk the cool-aid and truly believed in how easy all those steps were and just couldn't understand how anyone could have any issues at all with them unless they were an idiot.

[mcqueenjordan]

The jankiness of the original had a lot of charm, almost selling the dystopian absurdity of trying to deploy a service via the janky voice and slightly desync'd audio and animation. I don't think it's just nostalgia, because I felt the same way watching it the first time all those years ago.

I think AI slop is decidedly different, because it just doesn't have the charm. I don't know if I can yet decompose exactly why that is.

[ge96]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t6L-FlfeaI

[calmbonsai]

I wonder if Broccoli Man was inspired by Paul Rudd's Celery Man.

[btown]

More likely by the legendary Mongo DB Is Web Scale, which just turned 15 years old!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs

[Magi604]

We're still early. I imagine a lot of creativity will be unlocked once more people have access to easier to use video creation tools like what was shown in OP.

[jesucresta]

This is 100% AI slop, cool story and all but I'd 100 times rather see a very poorly drawn 2007 animation than any of this.

[swiftcoder]

Tbf, the original is also slop (albeit of the pre-AI variety)

[SpaceManNabs]

Kinda shocked at how much editing they had to do.

You'd think AI would make it easier to splice together individual clips, but I haven't find a tool that does that well yet. Opus seems tailored for doing fine tuning on long form content like podcasts.

[stuaxo]

While some stuff can generated, there is a long way to go.

[ctippett]

This is very well done.

I wouldn't and don't consider this to be AI slop. The author's own reflection captures perfectly my own feelings on the matter... intent does matter.

  I think what gets lost in a lot of the AI media discussion is that intent matters. I find auto-generated slop-farm TikToks just as dystopic as the most fervent doomer, but I also remember when I was a 10-year-old kid making movies with my parents’ VHS camcorder and how much fun I would have had learning how to make things if I’d had tools like this.

[tantalor]

According to Kagi, all AI generated content is slop.

https://help.kagi.com/kagi/features/slopstop.html#what-is-co...

[tomaytotomato]

Could someone remake the "MongoDB is webscale" skit with AI gen please?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs

[setheron]

Is the other character a fox because that's Meta mascot too?

[kridsdale3]

The original video is older than that.

[ceph_]

Red panda not fox

[moandcompany]

Does anyone miss Meatless Mondays?

[StephenAmar]

The bbq on the parking lot of the googleplex to protest this was fun. I still have the t-shirt somewhere

[bistro]

And the ensuing throwing out forks protest?

[glimshe]

Very cool! I'd be perfectly happy to watch videos that combine human creativity and choice with AI. I don't consider this kind of video "slop". Once the glitches are eliminated, this workflow will be unstoppable.

[windexh8er]

> Once the glitches are eliminated, this workflow will be unstoppable.

"... unstoppable." - What? I'm genuinely curious. Do you think this type of video is enjoyable? Maybe one, or even two like this is palatable - but I don't see anything 1) interesting or new 2) that would make me want to watch this by choice.

And when everyone is swimming in a sea of this type of work I don't think most people will enjoy it, either. It's also too bad we aren't more cognizant of how we got here, either. All of the artists work that was stolen to generate those images and then the watt hours burned. I'm not saying these types of offerings are completely for naught, but I do think some of these services should be forced to put a few pre or post pended frames that show (like nutrition facts) the environmental impact including model inference and that copyright was violated to make it.

[Forgeties79]

Yeah that was actually really funny to watch. And when you see some of the “decisions“ the AI tool makes - especially when they border on the bizarre - it adds another layer to the humor. Strange pauses or proximity/eyeline choices and such that aren’t wrong but definitely a bit weird or awkward