No, you aren’t imagining it: “Tung Tung Tung Sahur” is a genuine internet phenomenon that’s reduced many viewers to tears. As Steal a Brainrot breaks engagement records on Roblox and Fortnite, the meme-driven title has drawn increased scrutiny. It also highlights a simple point—you can’t commercially exploit characters you don’t own, especially when those creations are driving substantial revenue.
Steal a Brainrot rose to fame by marrying Gen Alpha internet memes with gameplay engineered for reaction-culture attention. Players capture and trade bizarre, often AI-assisted creatures built from obscure online jokes—part Skibidi Toilet, part Pokémon. Each “brainrot” gains value over time and can be stolen by other players, which is the core mechanic. The combination of a young, emotionally invested audience and older players who delight in trolling has turned the game into a small-scale study of human behavior under monetized attention, and one of the most-played titles globally.
Tung Tung Tung Sahur was one such collectible in Steal a Brainrot—until its removal in early September 2025. The character appears as a wooden drum with an empty stare and a baseball bat, originating in the Indonesian branch of the brainrot ecosystem. Although many well-known brainrots trace back to Italian communities, different regions spawn their own variants; occasionally, a regional creature breaks into international prominence, as Tung Tung did.
Its reach is enormous: a quick search reveals videos with tens of millions of views. One upload alone has roughly 65 million views, placing it among the most-viewed music videos worldwide. While many creators rely on AI to generate imagery, the original concept for Tung Tung is credited to Indonesian TikToker Noxa, whose contributions to the brainrot scene have been substantial—the Italian brainrot wiki even praises Noxa’s cultural impact.
According to an intermediary called Mememtum Lab, Noxa reached out to Sammy, one of Steal a Brainrot’s developers, and Sammy involved legal counsel. The character was subsequently removed from the game in early September 2025. The agency states it did not demand removal; rather, it appears Noxa is seeking a negotiated arrangement for continued use of the character.
Questions of ownership and attribution sit at the center of this dispute. Copyright typically protects works that reflect human creativity; when an image is generated by AI, courts and regulators have wrestled with whether the user or the tool constitutes the author. Interpretations differ by jurisdiction, but the companies named in this controversy are U.S.-based: Do Big Studios (Steal a Brainrot) is in Florida, Roblox is headquartered in California, and Epic Games (Fortnite) operates from North Carolina.
Image: Steal A Brainrot WikiIn the United States the legal framework is still catching up to generative AI. A U.S. Copyright Office report released in January 2025 concluded that “outputs of generative AI can be protected by copyright only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements,” but case law remains unsettled. Complicating matters further, Steal a Brainrot’s assets have been licensed for use across multiple platforms (including Fortnite), raising thorny questions about who profits when user-generated or AI-assisted content is repurposed at scale.
Players are vocal about Tung Tung’s removal. TikTok is full of tearful, angry, and nostalgic responses: clips documenting upset fans, alarmed reactions, and elegies for the character are collecting millions of views. Many posts memorialize Tung Tung with angelic imagery; at the same time, Noxa has faced a wave of hostile comments accusing them of greed—responses that occasionally reference memes and reaction images rather than factual details.
Popular creators have amplified the sentiment: one high-profile streamer noted that middle-schoolers were reportedly in tears and announced a livestream “funeral” for the character scheduled for later today (September 18, 2025). While fans mourn, the practical reality is that anyone can still recreate the wooden drum via AI generators, so Tung Tung’s image can continue to circulate even if the official in-game asset is absent.
References and notable posts:
- Mememtum Lab post describing the outreach and removal timeline.
- U.S. Copyright Office report (January 2025) on AI outputs and copyright.
- Examples of fan reaction: video, video, video, and commemorative clip.
- Noxa’s TikTok and a profile on the community wiki documenting Noxa’s work.
- Example YouTube upload with ~65M views.
Source: Polygon
