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What is the AI baby meme?
The AI baby meme is a video edit in which a drawn infant is composited onto an adult covering a laugh. Know Your Meme’s AI Baby Holding Laugh entry lists nicknames such as Niche Baby, Tuff Baby, and Baby Covering Mouth. It sits in the viral AI memes cluster.
KYM separates three threads. Dallas Rayburn shared the image on Instagram @dallas.psd on February 7, 2022, and on ArtStation in May 2022 as Droool. The base performance is Chinese short-form creator Xiucai (秀才) covering his mouth while lip-dubbing “Sweet Love” (甜蜜愛情). In November 2025, Instagram Reels from @daily_upl rotoscoped the Rayburn baby onto that footage (KYM dates the reel November 6, 2025).
Rotoscope, not a real baby
The clip is not documentary footage of an infant. Wikipedia’s rotoscoping page defines the technique as tracing live-action frame by frame (Max Fleischer; US patent 1242674, 1917) and, in VFX, creating a matte for compositing. That is the mechanism KYM describes for the 2025 edit. For tool context, see what rotoscoping is.
Parent silo: AI culture.
FAQ
What is the AI baby meme?
It is a rotoscoped composite of Dallas Rayburn’s 2022 baby drawing onto Xiucai’s mouth-cover performance, documented on Know Your Meme.
Is the AI baby a real baby?
No. The infant is an illustration mapped onto adult footage.
Who created the AI baby drawing?
Know Your Meme and the artist’s site attribute the drawing to Dallas Rayburn (2022). The 2025 viral edit is a later rotoscope.
