Erling Haaland Is Everywhere at the World Cup. Most of It Is AI
Norwegian striker Erling Haaland isn’t just a footballer anymore. He’s become an internet character perpetuated by fans and AI.
Last week, somewhere amid the World Cup frenzy, a now-viral video circulated of Norwegian striker Erling Haaland mid-mouthful in a restaurant, glancing left and flinching at his own reflection. One post on X sharing the video racked up more than 31 million views in mere days. But here’s the thing: It isn’t him.
Fact checkers traced the footage to a slapstick skit by the Chinese comedian Jin Long, posted to TikTok in mid-June . The corrections were duly noted, and yet the clip kept traveling anyway. By the fourth week of the 2026 World Cup , the internet had already decided who Erling Haaland is. AI or not, in the video, Haaland was in character.
If the old model of stardom was a white-knuckle grip on your own image, the new one, as evidenced in Haaland’s recent internet fame, is being a character so vivid, so relentlessly meme-able, that AI can do the hype thing for you. The celebrity, therefore, becomes something like an open-source character, only loosely tethered to the human who has the face.
And the Haaland fake didn’t spawn from nowhere. It came out of China, where the striker has already become somewhat of a meme sensation. He has spent the past few months fronting a commercial for a Chinese herbal drink, gamely attempting Mandarin, being turned into song and being rechristened Habao (roughly, “Ha Baby”) by fans who delight in the gap between the on-pitch destroyer and the off-pitch golden retriever. As his popularity in China exploded, Haaland launched official Douyin and Weibo accounts, and quickly amassed millions of followers. The reflection clip was one artefact in an entire cottage industry of AI Haaland memes and edits, all riffing on the same joke.
What, then, actually happens when deepfake becomes fan art?
This is increasingly how sports fandom works online. Athletes are no longer consumed solely through highlights or post-match interviews but as evolving characters with recognizable quirks and storylines.
