A viral video made Erling Haaland look like the comic center of the World Cup conversation. The clip showed the Norwegian striker in a restaurant, reacting mid-mouthful as if startled by his own reflection. One post on X sharing it passed more than 31 million views in mere days.
But the person in the video was not Haaland. Fact checkers traced the footage to a slapstick skit by the Chinese comedian Jin Long, posted to TikTok in mid-June. The correction did not stop the clip from moving through feeds, because for many viewers the video still matched the version of Haaland they had already accepted online.
Why the fake felt believable
The point is not only that an AI-driven or manipulated clip fooled people. The more important shift is that the clip fit an existing internet character. By the fourth week of the 2026 World Cup, Haaland had become more than a footballer in the online imagination. He had become a repeatable joke, a recognizable persona and a source of fan-made storylines.
That makes the Haaland clip different from a simple case of mistaken identity. It worked because it landed inside a fandom that already had rules. The image of Haaland as both dominant on the pitch and strangely playful off it had already been circulating through memes, edits and social posts.
In China, that character had been developing for months. Haaland fronted a commercial for a Chinese herbal drink, attempted Mandarin and was turned into song. Fans also gave him the nickname Habao, roughly, “Ha Baby,” playing with the contrast between his football persona and his softer online image.
As his popularity in China grew, Haaland opened official Douyin and Weibo accounts and quickly gathered millions of followers. The fake restaurant video was not an isolated object. It was part of a larger flow of AI Haaland memes and edits built around the same contrast.
From athlete to internet character
Sports fandom online is increasingly organized around individual athletes rather than only clubs, teams or match highlights. A report from AI sports content firm WSC Sports found that Gen Z in particular feels more connected to individual athletes than teams. A survey by the consulting firm Oliver Wyman found that social media content from athletes is the single largest driver of Gen Z sports engagement.
That matters because an athlete with a strong online identity can become something closer to a fictional character. Fans track the quirks, repeat the jokes and build their own interpretations around the gaps. The source article uses the term “fanon” for this invented material, and AI makes that material easier to produce at speed.
In that environment, the audience no longer waits for the athlete to create every moment. Fans can generate, edit and circulate scenes that feel consistent with the character they already know. The question becomes less about whether a piece of content is real, and more about whether it belongs to the story the audience is telling.
This helps explain why the Haaland clip kept spreading after it was corrected. Some people were fooled. Others appeared willing to keep sharing because the scene felt right inside the meme logic around him.
Deepfake panic is only part of the story
The Haaland case sits inside a wider pattern. The @deeptomcruise account began posting highly convincing Tom Cruise deepfakes on TikTok in 2021, and the public response included delight in the millions. In 2023, an AI-generated track mimicking Drake and The Weeknd created fan excitement and was streamed enthusiastically before labels got it pulled.
That same year, the Balenciaga Pope image fooled half the internet for an afternoon. The reaction included attention to the coat itself, not only concern about the use of AI. These examples show that audiences do not always respond to synthetic media with rejection. When the image or clip fits something people want to believe, they may choose to play along.
That does not remove the problem of deception. The Haaland clip was treated by many viewers as if it showed the real striker. But it also shows that the social life of AI media is more complicated than a simple falsehood moving through a passive audience.
- Some viewers believe the fake is real.
- Some viewers understand the artificiality but share it anyway.
- Some viewers treat the content as fan art, not evidence.
For public figures, that mix creates a new kind of image problem. The old celebrity model depended on controlling access and official appearances. The newer version depends on how strongly the public can reproduce the character without needing the person to be present.
Why Haaland became the perfect subject
Haaland was already positioned to be central to this World Cup conversation. The tournament marked Norway’s first World Cup since 1998, and he was a striker chasing the Golden Boot. But the online reaction around him was also powered by his off-pitch persona.
His personal Snapchat account had 3.3 million followers and climbing, and it presented a less polished version of celebrity. The content included nostril-angle selfies, bald filters, Q&As and comedic videos. That gave fans a large supply of real material before AI added more.
The humor depends on contrast. On the pitch, Haaland is described in the source as a 6-foot-5-inch, Viking-coded goal machine. Off the pitch, the material around him is goofy, self-aware and easy to remix.
Kylian Mbappé has also been pulled into this World Cup’s AI meme cycle. The “Dictator Mbappé” memes recast him as Mao and Kim Jong Un, often paired with an ominous nasheed. Although the roots of that meme go back as early as 2023 after a dispute over a kebab joke, it has returned during this tournament in AI-rendered fiction, including versions that place Dictator Mbappé in Ancient Greece.
What this changes for sports fame
Football hype has always involved imagination. Transfer rumors, fan theories and online jokes all depend on the audience wanting a story to keep moving. AI changes the speed and volume of that process.
Previously, fans needed real-world material: a strange interview, a candid post, a celebration, a public mistake. Now they can manufacture scenes that match the character they already have in mind. The result is a celebrity economy less dependent on direct access and more dependent on whether the audience wants to continue the fiction.
For Haaland, that fiction is powerful because it is anchored in real contrasts already visible to fans. The AI clip did not create his internet persona from nothing. It exaggerated a role the online crowd had already assigned him.
The future of sports media may therefore be shaped not only by broadcasts, highlights or official posts, but by the audience’s ability to keep athletes in circulation as characters. In that world, a fake clip can become meaningful even after it is debunked, because the fandom is not only asking what happened. It is asking what feels like it could have happened inside the story it already knows.