No, you’re not having a stroke: Tung Tung Tung Sahur is a real thing on the internet that people are shedding tears over. As Steal a Brainrot breaks user records in Roblox and Fortnite, the meme-focused game has come under more scrutiny. And it turns out, you can’t just make a video game out of a bunch of characters you don’t own. At least, not when you might be making millions of dollars off the experience.
As many of you unfortunately know, Steal a Brainrot has become an internet sensation by combining popular gen Alpha internet memes with gameplay made for the era of YouTube thumbnail reactions. In it, players collect monsters based on deep-cut internet jokes. Many of these figures combine everyday animals with human objects, and the result is a surreal goldmine. Think Skibidi Toilet by way of Pokémon. The brainrots all have value, and their worth goes up the longer that you own them. As the name implies, Steal a Brainrot allows other users to purloin your creatures. While many young adults who grew up on Roblox are playing Steal a Brainrot, part of the reason it’s become such a spectacle is its younger audience. Kids get attached to their brainrots and get upset when they lose them, even though that’s the whole point of the game. Adults play Steal a Brainrot specifically to troll children. This exemplary microcosm of the human condition under capitalism is now literally one of the most popular games on the planet.
Tung Tung Tung Sahur is one of the many collectible brainrots in SABR, or at least it was up until last week. Tung Tung is a wooden drum with a blank, soulless stare who wields a baseball bat, and this thing is a part of the Indonesian Brainrot compendium. You see, many brainrots have a cultural component to them. Most of the popular examples stem from the Italian brainrot collection, but different countries have their own zoology. The brainrots popular in Spain might be different from the ones in Russia, for example, but occasionally you’ll get one that breaks through to the mainstream. Those are the brainrots you’ll likely find in Steal a Brainrot.
And boy are they popular. In the case of Tung Tung Tung Sahur, a quick Google search will show you videos with millions of views. This one alone has 65 million views, which is enough for YouTube to deem it the 67th most popular music video in the world. Here’s where it gets interesting, though. Though Tung Tung Tung Sahur was originally created with the help of AI, and most people making content with the character also rely on AI. Still, someone had to come up with the original concept, right? In this case, Tung Tung is the brainchild of Noxa, an Indonesian TikToker responsible for dozens of brainrot characters. Noxa’s creations have made enough of a cultural impact that the Italian brainrot wiki describes Noxa as “a modern genius.”
At some point, it appears that Noxa contacted Sammy, one of Steal a Brainrot‘s creators, through the help of an agency called Mememtum Lab. The agency claims that during this exchange, Sammy immediately got his lawyer involved and proactively pulled Tung Tung Tung Sahur from the game earlier in September. The agency maintains that it did not ask Sammy to get rid of the character; if anything, it appears that Noxa would like to work out a deal of some sort for its continued usage.
“Steal a Brainrot is making millions in revenue using Noxa’s work, in which we invest time and resources,” reads a statement made by the company on TikTok. “We were always open for discussion and Noxa would be happy for the players to keep playing with Tung Sahur. This situation isn’t fair regarding our partners (small and big studios) who have acquired our license in all fairness.”]
The big question here is, can you actually own an AI-generated image? In many cases, the answer seems to be no. Copyright protection applies to media made through human creativity. If you’re using an AI image generator, there’s an argument to be made that the technology, not the user, is the source of that creativity, even if the human is coming up with the prompts. There are asterisks to these guidances around copyright, some of which might differ depending on the country in question. While some of the people involved in this dispute live in different areas of the world, the companies at the heart of the matter are American. Do Big Studios, which owns Steal a Brainrot, is based in Florida. Roblox‘s HQ is in California, while Fortnite creator Epic Games is based out of North Carolina.
And in the U.S., the law is still trying to catch up with the advancements made by AI. In January 2025, a new report by the U.S. copyright office dictated that “the outputs of generative AI can be protected by copyright only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements.” A handful of recent cases have seen attempts to copyright AI-generated content fail, but legal precedent is still considered in-flux as a whole. Another wrinkle in all of this is that Steal a Brainrot has been licensed for usage on platforms outside of Roblox, such as Fortnite. The particulars of who gets to profit from a game that heavily relies on user-generated content which itself might be AI-generated seems like a nightmare.
Wherever Tung Tung Tung Sahur lands, Steal a Brainrot players are mourning his current absence from the game. On TikTok, there are videos of sad, alarmed, and teary-eyed fans who can’t believe that such a central figure to the brainrot universe is now gone. Videos commemorating Tung Tung Tung are getting millions of views, and memes showing Tung Tung with angel wings are a common sight in many posts about him. Meanwhile, Noxa, the originator of the meme, is getting slammed by angry users in the comments as well. In a video with 119 million views, one of the top comments reads, “You did this because of your greedy ahh.” Helpfully, the comment appends an image of Martin Luther King crying. Beyond holding Tung Tung in high esteem, part of the outcry seems to be rooted in the misinformation that the legal dispute is somehow going to get Steal a Brainrot deleted.
“My cousin who’s in middle school said there were kids crying about this btw,” reads a post on X from a YouTuber with 14 million subscribers, who will be holding a funeral for the character live on the platform later today. Though it is still hours away, as of this writing there are a couple of hundred people waiting in the queue for the Tung Tung vigil. I’d say RIP Tung Tung 2025-2025, except anyone can still generate images of the wooden monstrosity if they want.
