Is the Internet Dying? The Chilling Truth Behind the ‘Dead Internet Theory’ Unveiled
Ever get that creepy feeling that your Instagram feed might just be a bunch of robots having a tea party without your RSVP? Well, you’re not alone. Lately, a parade of AI-generated characters has been amassing follower counts that would make even seasoned influencers blink. This wild surge is stirring up talks about the so-called ‘Dead Internet Theory’—the chilling idea that most online chatter isn’t actually human at all. Imagine scrolling through your favorite social media, only to realize you’re mostly interacting with bots and AI accounts that feed off each other’s nonsense like an endless digital echo chamber. Sounds like the plot of a sci-fi flick, right? But here’s the kicker: this phenomenon isn’t just a quirky internet tidbit; it poses a serious headache for advertisers trying to reach… well, actual humans. And as AI-powered personas like Jean Philanthrope and Archibald Brown shadowbox their way into hundreds of thousands of followers, one has to ask—are influencers really dead, or just evolving into pixelated phantoms? Dive in if you’re ready to peek behind the digital curtain. LEARN MORE.
A string of AI-generated characters have been gaining massive followings on social media, leading some people to worry that the ‘Dead Internet Theory’ is becoming a reality.
The Dead Internet Theory is the idea that most internet traffic on social media and other parts of the internet is not actually real people exchanging information.
Instead, the majority of traffic is made up of bots or even AI accounts which are generating messages and traffic off the back of each other.
When the majority of the internet is made up of bots and AI, then it becomes ‘dead’ because human users interact mainly interact with generated content served to them by algorithms.
It’s potentially a big problem because one of the biggest parts of how parts of the internet, in particular social media, has been driven is by selling advertising, and when you can no longer be assured that the accounts you’re reaching out to and being viewed by are even real people, that’s an issue.
The Dead Internet Theory is not a new thing, with bots exchanging messages and posts on social media platforms for several years.
However, the rise of generative AI has brought about a whole new level in being able to quickly put together an account without a human ever even directly featuring, or even filming, the videos.
The value of the JEANPHIL coin crashed earlier this month (Instagram/jean_philanthrope)
One particularly large AI-generated account is that of ‘Jean Philanthrope‘, with a surname that ironically means ‘to love humans’, which has racked up around 238,000 followers on Instagram.
The videos posted to the account show the AI-generated character with bleached blonde hair in a bob cut, a twirly moustache, and dressed in a tweed suit.
He is usually standing in an unusual location, with the Eiffel Tower generated in the background or in a generated depiction of a museum or restaurant, before doing the same routine of shadow boxing.
There’s even a ‘rival’ account which has sprung up called ‘Archibald Brown‘, with the account posting similar AI-generated videos of another character who is coded as English, and also does shadowboxing routines in AI-generated locations.
AI generated character Archibald Brown (Instagram/archibald_brown)
One person even claimed that ‘influencers are dead’, saying that you can use AI to generate a ‘character sheet’, which you then feed into a video generator which churns out videos for the account.
Taking to X, user @simonecanciello wrote: “dead internet theory is real. you can actually create an AI character and get 200k followers in 1 week.”
The accounts seem to be proving successful, being pushed by algorithms and growing quickly online as people interact with them, though many on the account of ‘Jean Phil’ are engaging by commenting that it is AI-generated content, though others either seemingly don’t realise it’s AI, or say they don’t care.
Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seems to have admitted that more AI-generated content is spreading on social media, posting to X in 2025: “i never took the dead internet theory that seriously but it seems like there are really a lot of LLM-run twitter accounts now”.
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