Bay Goes Skibidi

Michael Bay, the explosive force behind the Transformers franchise, has officially signed on to direct a feature film based on Skibidi Toilet — the chaotic YouTube series that has captivated Generation Alpha with its bizarre mix of toilet-dwelling heads and techno-dystopian enemies made from televisions and speakers.

The announcement, made by production company Invisible Narratives, marks a major shift in the studio system’s approach to internet-born content. Once dismissed as fringe absurdism, Skibidi Toilet has evolved into a cultural juggernaut. Since debuting in February 2023 on the DaFuq!?Boom! channel created by Russian animator Alexey Gerasimov, the series has amassed over 35 billion views and a combined following of more than 110 million subscribers through its affiliated creator network.

Bay’s adaptation will attempt to translate the meme’s chaotic visual language and loosely connected episodes — often likened to first-person shooter video games more than cinema — into a full-length narrative film. Helping him do that are some heavyweights from the industry: production designer Jeffrey Beecroft (12 Monkeys) and visual effects legend Rob Legato (Titanic, Avatar), both of whom bring Academy Award credentials to the project.

The original 11-second video that sparked the franchise featured a man’s head emerging from a toilet, singing an unintelligible tune — a moment that exploded online and gave birth to what’s now a serialized fever dream. With over 70 episodes and a fervent fan base, the Skibidi Toilet series has become emblematic of Gen Alpha’s fragmented, meme-driven entertainment diet.

“Skibidi Toilet could be the next Transformers or a Marvel universe,” said Invisible Narratives CEO and former Paramount president Adam Goodman in a statement to Variety, underscoring the project’s ambitious scope.

Linguistically, the meme has even seeped into everyday slang. In a recent Oxford University Press survey, “skibidi” ranked as the third most used term among young people, functioning as a surreal placeholder for almost anything — good, bad, or weird. Examples from kids include phrases like “it’s totally skibidi mode” or “my chances of winning are very skibidi.”

What began as digital nonsense may now become Hollywood’s next blockbuster gamble — with Michael Bay leading the charge into the toilet. Literally.