How to renovate your home for a billion children

Over time, the aesthetic and style of these videos began to change. Designer Bob's early viral renovation videos were silly, but could sometimes be mistaken for real design content. Newer videos were more ridiculous, the renovations more fantastical, their plot narrated by a booming AI voice. That's exactly how TikTok's remix culture works, says Alex Turvy, who studies digital culture.

“We will see trends like this become more and more absurd until they disappear,” he says.

There's even a spin-off meme specifically about “galvanized square steel,” to the point where some users have questioned whether the entire meme is a viral galvanized steel marketing campaign.

“I find Tradition is really a good word here. Now the videos are exploding and doing well Because There’s lore surrounding them,” said Karten. “Lore maintains virality.”

The more I watched these videos, the more desperate I became to understand who was making them. In Designer Bob's case, the account bio points to an online candle and crystal store operated by a China-based company called Whisper Wisp. And Designer Bob's Facebook page lists Hong Kong as a base in the “Page Transparency” section. Still, it seems unlikely that this is a covert marketing campaign for a candle shop. None of Whisper Wisp's social channels are nearly as popular as Designer Bob's account. (Whisper Wisp hasn't responded to any of my messages.)

Details about who is behind the Dy02449xjp account are even rarer. There is a Facebook page with the same username that shares the same videos. Beyond that, nothing. No other connected accounts, storefronts or identifying information. If a scam or upsell is imminent, it hasn't gone down yet. At least for now, Dy02449xjp seems to be pursuing TikTok engagement for its own sake.

Many of these reports use a variation of the name “Home Designs” and similar small house logos that closely resemble the branding of an architecture and interior design program called HomeDesignsAI – an important clue, I thought, to solving the mystery. I was able to track down the COO and co-founder of HomeDesignsAI, Denis Madroane. But he was just as confused as anyone about how popular these renovation TikToks have become.

HomeDesignsAI is a Romania-based startup founded in 2023. The app allows users to upload a photo of a room or floor plan and transform it using AI. Madroane says he started seeing TikToks using HomeDesignsAI last year. He says he and his team found them pretty fun – but they don't see much upside.

Madroane confirmed that while Home-DesignsAI has a TikTok account, he doesn't actually participate in the memes. It has a little under 900 followers and its largest video has around 195,000 views. That seems fine—until you compare it to the unofficial Home DesignsAI accounts on TikTok. The biggest, @homedesign369, has 2.4 million followers and consistently receives millions of views per video.

“Our official account performs significantly compared to the average figures for user-generated content,” admits Madroane.

But as it turns out, none of the most viral Little John TikToks were created using HomeDesignsAI software. So the mystery is unsolved. And before this summer, no one on TikTok seemed to know where these videos came from. That is, until Candise Lin, a U.S.-based Cantonese and Mandarin tutor, noticed the trend going viral and revealed the missing puzzle piece — at least to confused Americans — in a TikTok video of her own.