AI is being deemed as a force to reckon with but more than often, it leads to hilarious and shocking fails. Ask Redditor u/PizzaLater, who posted a 30-second video on April 24, 2023 on r/midjourney which soon went viral. Many people viewed and commented on the post including some big pizza chains and billionaires. The Reddit user utilized AI to create an ad for a fictitious pizza place that goes by the name Pepperoni Hug Spot.

"Definitely wasted 3 hours of my life making this today... Everything is AI from the VO to the video and images. Assembled in After Effects," the Reddit user captioned the video which went viral on several social media platforms like Reddit, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. "Are you ready for the best pizza of life? Bring friends down to Pepperoni Hug Spot," the voiceover says in a halting manner, accompanied by a retro background score. "Our chefs make pizza with heart and special touch," the voice-over continues. If you've already seen the video you know how the voice paired with those images is a constant reminder of the fact that none of it is real—the pizza isn't real and neither are the people taking a bite out of it. 

The voice-over continues to say, "Cheese, pepperoni, vegetable, and more secret things" but the things that appear on the screen look nothing like the items mentioned. "Knock Knock, who's there? Pizza Magic." The 'knock knock' sounds straight out of The Conjuring and anything but a cheesy pizza will come to your mind when you hear it (especially after sundown). In another scene, a pizza chef is shown preparing the dough but with no clear end to his arms or a definite start to the dough. The entire video is a compilation of human-like figures eating pizza-like things and you are immediately transferred to an uncanny valley where people don't breathe and pizzas can't be chewed.  

The creator who wanted to be referred to by his username, Pizza Later talked about the process of making the video, "Text-to-video technology is still in its infancy so the quality of the clips remains quite rough. However, it was perfect for this spoof commercial,” Pizza Later told TODAY. “A simple prompt like 'a woman eating a slice of pizza, TV commercial’ yielded fantastic results,” he continued. He produced background music, voiceover, graphics, video and generated the script for the ad using AI technologies Runway Gen2, Chat GPT4, Eleven Labs, Midjourney and Soundraw AI. “I used Adobe After Effects to combine all the elements, adding title cards, transitions and graphics,” he said.

“Eat Pepperoni Hug Spot pizza. Your tummy says 'Thank you.' Your mouth says, 'Mmm,'" the voice-over continues while the videos show three women eating pizzas. The video treads a fine line between being scary and funny as netizens also pointed out in the comments. "This AI-generated pizza commercial is terrifying and hilarious," tweeted @AKBrews. @WillCR831now wrote, "U have fire content!!! This reminds me of almost pizza from SNL's best Kristen Wiig"  “Dude this is so cursed I can’t handle it,” writes u/69glorywhole69 on Reddit.

Pizza Later's inspiration came on a normal workday as a full-time motion designer and editor and he revealed just wanted to make a video that he could share with friends for a laugh.​ Seeing the video spread, he made a website that suits the vibe of the commercial and even created merch including hats and T-shirts. “I figured I should capitalize on my 15 minutes of internet fame, right?” he joked. “Honestly, it has been a fun week. I have made many people laugh, sold some merchandise and established potential connections for the future.” You're only a play button away from seeing why the video gained the traction that it did.