For Reasons We Don’t Get, Michael Bay Is Making “Skibidi Toilet” Movie & TV Show

As a generation raised on the early internet, Millennials enjoyed their fair share of weird online nonsense. Homestar Runner. Salad Fingers. eBaum’s World. I Can Has Cheezburger. But we’re confident saying that when it comes to the internet, our Gen Alpha children have truly outweirded us. And now, it is our grim duty to report that your 12 year old’s favorite meme — “Skibidi Toilet” — might just have a future on the big screen. Apparently, Michael Bay (yes, that Michael Bay) is working with former Paramount Pictures president Adam Goodman to develop the web series for TV and film.

Variety reports that while the project “is not a be-all, end-all for us” according to Goodman, the pair are keen to capitalize on the IP (which has only been extant for about 18 months), created by Alexey Gerasimov, which centers around one-to-five minute videos of disembodied heads in toilets fighting Cyborgs, sans dialogue or any particularly clear plot. For *gesticulates frantically * reasons, apparently, this has resonated with the sensibilities of the youths and “skibidi” has become a shibboleth of Gen Alpha culture. (There’s no right way to use it as slang, but they will be sure to let you, an adult, know when you’re using it incorrectly. Ask me how I know...)

For those of you still blissfully unaware of this trend, here’s Episode 24 of the current 76 available. There’s a whole backstory developed seemingly after the fact, but each individual episode sort of goes along these lines...

Yeah. We know, you guys. But to a certain extent, Skibidi Toilets going to Hollywood make sense... sorta.

For major studios, existing intellectual properties (IPs) — content audiences already regard positively like Marvel comics, Star Wars and Barbie — are a safer bet than original content. With the loss of video rental profits in the mid-aughts, getting butts in theater seats is even more vital to movie studios; they’re not going to risk investing an unproven indie film or quiet drama people are more likely to watch once it hits a streaming service. Hence we have studios going all in on properties with tried and true popular appeal.

“Skibidi Toilet” isn’t the first instance of an internet sensation making it even bigger. CoComelon is now on Netflix and is being developed for film. Big names like Kate McKinon, Jack Black, and Jason Mamoa will appear in a Minecraft movie next year and... now we have “Skibidi Toilet” to look forward to. (“Look forward to.”)

So, OK, the basic premise here makes sense: familiar = audience = money. But the source material here isn’t exactly ripe for a feature film. Something that makes you giggle for 11 seconds at a time (the length of the first video) isn’t going to hit the same in a feature-length format. A meme ain’t a movie.

And look, I’m not saying previous generations were immune to nonsensical YouTube videos. I think plenty parents out there can remember laughing hysterically at the “Badger Song.”

But I like to think that if a movie studio ever said “Hey, we’re going to give the mushroom a backstory, and turn it into a movie and TV show” it would have earned some side-eye.