July 2, 2025
The videos show Black women as versions of bigfoot engaging in racist tropes.
New AI videos of Black women depicted as bigfoot-human hybrids have become viral on social media.
Deemed “Bigfoot baddies,” the video showcases Black women in a stereotypical and racist light. Dressing up the artificially-made figure in acrylic nails and pink wigs, one garnered over a million views for its look and use of offensive tropes.
“We might have to go on the run,” said the figure on the AI video. “I’m wanted for a false report on my baby daddy.”
According to Wired, the video was generated by Google’s VEO 3. Since its launch in May, users have created videos of “Bigfoot baddies” simulating real-life vlogs. While the trend first used characters like bigfoot and even figures from the Bible to add to the trend, it has since emerged as an offensive display of stereotypes against Black women.
The depiction of Black women as a version of bigfoot themselves also carries a darker meaning. One expert says that the trend has taken the dehumanization and ridicule of Black women through AI to new heights.
“There’s a historical precedent behind why this is offensive. In the early days of slavery, Black people were overexaggerated in illustrations to emphasize primal characteristics,” explained Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. “It’s both disgusting and disturbing that these racial tropes and images are readily available to be designed and distributed on online platforms.”
Multiple videos have garnered millions of views each, spreading across apps like TikTok and Instagram. They showcase the hybrid animal-women speaking African American vernacular English, or AAVE, to further signify their Blackness.
Many, however, have warned about the sinister capabilities of AI video creation, comparing the perceived “harmless” technological advancement to the development of social platforms.
“One of the problems with generative AI is that the creators of AI tools cannot conceive of all of the ways that people can be horrible to each other,” explained Meredith Broussard, a professor at New York University. “So, they can’t put up a sufficient number of guardrails. It’s exactly the same problem we’ve seen on social media platforms.”
They not only include racist depictions of Black women, but also Black men. Some videos show Black men reconfigured as chimpanzees while on a fishing boat to catch fried chicken.
AI has already been called out for its bias against users who speak AAVE. Now, its unrealized racist implications have expanded to the content themselves. Furthermore, access to these AI-generative platforms remain on the rise, potentially subjecting minorities to even more virtual harassment and abuse.
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