How to do the Barbie Doll AI Trend? Viral ChatGPT action figure tool explained

After the viral Ghibli AI trend, a new trend has taken over TikTok and Instagram. People are using ChatGPT to turn their photos into Barbie dolls.

This trend is part of the Barbiecore style, but instead of wearing pink, users create doll-like versions of themselves inside a Barbie box. It's called the #BarbieBoxChallenge.

According to Times Now, to participate in the Barbie Box challenge, users have to upload their high-resolution picture on ChatGPT and add a prompt telling the app to generate the picture into an action figure-like doll inside a box. The doll-like picture can be customized, for example, with different slogans or items added.

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Who started the viral Ghibli AI trend?

ChatGPT user creating Ghibli-styled images on the app - Image via Getty

According to The Economic Times report dated March 31, the first person to do the Ghibli trend was Grant Slatton, a software engineer from Seattle.

On March 26, Slatton uploaded a Ghibli-style picture of him, his wife, and his dog at the beach. He jokingly wrote in the caption that it was tremendously "alpha" of him to send a studio Ghibli-styled picture to his wife.

"Tremendous alpha right now in sending your wife photos of yall converted to studio ghibli anime," he wrote.

Grant Slatton's tweet quickly caught the eye of netizens as it went viral, garnering over 45,000 likes. Most netizens jumped on the trend and started creating their Ghibli-styled picture.

The massive popularity of the Ghibli trend even caused the OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, to come forward and tell ChatGPT users to slow down. On March 30, Altman jokingly tweeted to netizens, letting them know that the app's team needed rest.

"Can yall please chill on generating images this is insane our team needs sleep," he wrote.

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Some netizens criticized the Ghibli trend by bringing up Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki's past statement on artificial intelligence

Some netizens criticized the Ghibli trend by stating that Hayao Miyazaki, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli and the animator behind the widely popular animated movies, condemned art generated by artificial intelligence.

According to the Times of India's report, Hayao Miyazaki's comment on art created by artificial intelligence is from a 2016 NHK documentary series by Kaku Arukawa, titled Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki.

In the documentary, Miyazaki and his long-time friend and collaborator, Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki, were shown clips of a human-like creature crawling by a group of animators and designers. One of them stated that such creatures could be used in zombie games.

In response, Miyazaki mentioned a close friend who is disabled, saying that because of the friend's condition, he doesn't find the clips interesting. He said,

"Every morning, not in recent days, I see my friend who has a disability. It’s so hard for him just to do a high five; his arm with stiff muscle can’t reach out to my hand. Now, thinking of him, I can’t watch this stuff and find it interesting."

He called out the designers by saying that the people who created the clips didn't know what pain was. Calling such art "an insult to life itself," Miyazaki claimed he would never use artificial intelligence in his work. He said,

"Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is. I am utterly disgusted. If you really want to make creepy stuff, you can go ahead and do it, but I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself."

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After the Ghibli trend, the Barbie Box Challenge has now gained popularity on social media platforms.