An online revolution is brewing as TikTok users have committed to flooding YouTube Shorts with what they have called “brain rot” content on March 25, 2025. The campaign has been dubbed as the “YouTube Shorts colonization” and is in response to mounting fears over the platform’s content landscape and looming threat of TikTok being prohibited in the United States.
The movement was started by TikTok user @privden2 on 13th March 2025 with a mass participation call. The video quickly gained popularity with over 724,000 views and 111,000 likes and establishing the momentum of the movement. YouTube Shorts have become stale with “dead memes” and recycled content overrunning the platform, according to supporters. The mission? To introduce TikTok’s brand of chaotic, breakneck-speed, and nonsensical humor—popularly referred to as “brain rot” content—to YouTube Shorts.
Other motivation stems besides YouTube Shorts conversion is concern over TikTok’s destiny in America. The Biden administration has given ByteDance’s TikTok until April 5, 2025, to sell to a U.S.-owned company or face ban in the country. This uncertainty has led users of TikTok to move to other platforms to save their communities and content format, with YouTube Shorts being a natural fit.
TikTok users have been actively organizing the take over through viral promotional videos, hashtag activism, and social engagement. The movement’s most famous piece of propaganda is a reinterpretation of the historical painting “Landing of Columbus” to depict the coming digital invasion of YouTube Shorts. Popular accounts such as @officialtiktokmilitary have been showing participants how to take over the algorithm.
The main objectives of colonization are: Diversification of Content: Translating TikTok’s unique meme culture to YouTube Shorts.
Algorithmic manipulation: Attempt to have YouTube Shorts recommend more TikTok-style videos.
Community Building: Building a space in which TikTok’s online culture can grow on YouTube.
The exodus of TikTok users to YouTube Shorts will likely cause a platform shift but can also generate friction. Some long-term YouTube Shorts content makers have complained that it would disrupt the current ecosystem. But others see that it will create a platform for a new wave of creative content. Digital culture commentators say that this phenomenon can recast online communities’ response to platform uncertainty and regulatory threats.
