By now, we’ve all encountered AI-generated video content on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook — everywhere. You may have even dabbled in AI video creation yourself. The required tools are widely available, and the results have never been more convincing. Yet, despite the steady march toward realism, what makes AI content truly entrancing is its persistent absurdity. Viewers seem drawn to the weirder side of AI and the ways it gets things wrong. One thing’s for sure: You’ll get plenty of weird on the Skilaw AI YouTube channel.

We had a chance to chat with Skilaw to learn more about his challenges and successes on YouTube so far. Let’s take a closer look at how Skilaw AI leveraged the absurdity of AI-generated video to quickly build a following — and an income stream — on YouTube.

How AI Slop is made

An onslaught of AI tools for video creation has bombarded the marketplace. AI creators often use a combination of tools to generate different elements of their overall visions, as we talked about in the article on AI ASMR.

To keep it simple, usually, an AI creator will start with an idea. Sometimes, it’s just a written prompt that’s then fed into an AI video generator. Skilaw does things a bit differently. He uses still frames from his favorite animated movies as the seeds for his AI-generated content.

Skilaw explains the process like this: “Basically, I do AI parodies of movies, mainly animated movies. So it’s like I put frames of a movie in an AI generator and then I give the AI instructions and then I get a result. And I always try to make it funny, of course, or funny or weird or random.”

Before Skilaw AI

Skilaw AI didn’t come out of nowhere. Before making AI content, Skilaw was already making hip-hop reaction content:

“I have a YouTube channel, it’s like a reaction channel, and I [have done] it since [the] end [of] 2017, and it’s actually a reaction to mainly hip-hop songs with my dad,” he says. “French hip-hop because I live in a country where we speak French.”

That channel, “Skilaw & L’Padre,” has had some success, but Skilaw says that views and subscribers have tapered off recently. “We did consistently upload videos until 2024,” Skilaw explains. “And in the end, I saw a decrease in views. So I think people get bored of it.”

Skilaw fully admits that the main motivation for starting Skilaw AI was to make some extra money in his free time. “I ended up on a YouTube channel who talked about using AI to make videos, but it was like automated videos. So it’s like motivational speeches or spiritual things like that,” Skilaw told us. However, he quickly realized this type of content wasn’t fulfilling to make: “I tried it, but it was not really my thing because I realized these type of videos, it’s like only for the money, like very easy to make, you put in no effort, it’s like the AI does everything. And I realized like I want to do something myself with passion.”

From there, Skilaw decided to pivot and try making AI content that was more relevant to his own interests. “I found out about this AI tool where you can put pictures and then a video comes out of it and I thought why not put pictures of movies just to see what will happen,” Skilaw recalls. He did try it and was pleasantly surprised with the results. “I found out like sometimes like random crazy stuff happening and I just thought it was funny. So I chose to do that because I’m also passionate about mainly animated movies.”

How Skilaw decides what to ruin next

In the beginning, Skilaw had some difficulty gaining traction. “I didn’t know how to call it. I started by calling them instead of ‘but it’s ruined by AI,’ I called them ‘but it’s reimagined by AI.’ But I wasn’t really satisfied with that title.” Eventually, he saw just one other creator using “but ruined by AI” in their titles and decided to adopt that convention. “To me, it was not negative,” he explains, “because I mean, in French, ruined is not really like in English. So in the beginning, I didn’t know it was like, that negative. But then I saw when I put that title, I [saw] it got interest.”

His content draws mostly on movies and TV shows from the early 2000s. “My favorite is ‘Cars,'” he tells us. “I made 15 videos about ‘Cars 1,’ ‘2’ and ‘3’ because I really enjoy these movies. Also ‘Toy Story,’ basically all the main Disney and Pixar movies … ‘Pokémon,’ like basically my childhood, the animes in the 2000s, the beginning 2000s.” Skilaw mentioned that some of his worst-performing videos involved the AI-ification of “Shrek.” Perhaps “Shrek” fans are particularly protective over their favorite characters.

Skilaw says he’s sure to inject his own creativity into his AI creations: “I just try to use my imagination. You know, when I look at the scene, I look, I watch it a few times and try to look at the stuff around the characters. And I think if there is interesting stuff around it, I can try to make it move and make it do something completely crazy.”

He’ll also create multiple iterations of the same clip to make sure he’s getting the most interesting and creative results. He says, “If you keep pushing, pushing, pushing, eventually you will get something out of it.”

How AI creators make money

Skilaw says he’s already making a living from his AI-generated video content, despite the channel being active for less than a year. When he was let go from his previous job, he went all in on content production, and that consistency has paid off. “Last month, September, was my best month,” Skilaw reveals. “I never made so many views and so much money, actually.”

AI video creators make money in much the same way that any other YouTube creator makes money: AdSense. However, while traditional YouTube creators have the option to supplement their AdSense income with sponsored content, merch sales, speaking appearances and lot of other creative business ideas, AI video creators are generally stuck with AdSense as their primary income source. These channels can’t serve as influencers as effectively as human creators because they don’t generate the same para-social connection and trust. That trust is what makes influencers so powerful — and so valuable to advertisers. Similarly, viewers are less likely to buy t-shirts or convention tickets when they don’t have a strong connection with the creator selling them.

On the other hand, AdSense income doesn’t rely on personal connection or emotional resonance. It relies on view counts and watch time. AdSense doesn’t care if the viewer is watching out of curiosity, enjoyment or disgust. Views are views; the AdSense payout is the same either way.

AI content has the advantage here. Because you can create AI content much more quickly than traditional content, AI creators can easily upload new videos multiple times a day. The algorithm loves this. And so does AdSense. Lots of videos being uploaded means lots of real estate for pre-, post- and mid-roll ads. So, despite not really being able to participate in the influencer economy, AI creators can still bring in a full-time income through AdSense.

Why are AI videos successful?

The newness of AI video is one huge reason AI video creators are successful. Viewers are attracted to the novelty of AI. We are collectively entranced by what this sci-fi-inspired tech can do and how quickly its capabilities have progressed.

On the other end of the spectrum, Skilaw AI specifically targets nostalgic media properties like “Cars” (2006) and “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993) for his AI videos. Millennial and older Gen-Z viewers tune in to see a twisted take on their childhood favorites.

Finally, titles like “Pokémon but it’s ruined by AI” surely attract hate watchers. But, even if you are watching purely to see how bad it is, that still counts towards the channel’s total watch time and monthly AdSense payout.

The AI haters

Skilaw say he does get a fair amount of hate: “Many times I have people commenting about how bad the AI is, like how bad it looks. But I don’t understand because I get many views and many subscribers and much watch time … it’s like they say it’s bad, but they cannot stop watching.”

Surprisingly, however, comments under videos like “Cars 2 but it’s ruined by AI” are generally positive, or at least playful. Of course, Skilaw might be removing unkind comments, which would be perfectly acceptable and generally a good practice. I didn’t ask in our interview. Regardless, it seems that most commenters simply want to show appreciation for their favorite absurd moment in the video. Many make requests for future videos. A few comments highlight the uncanny terror that only comes from AI content. Here are some examples from different users:

“That’s terrifying but also hilarious-“

“At this point I couldn’t tell if my brain and eyes were glitching or was the video”

“i had a nightmare after watching this”

“This is literally cursed.”

Scrolling through, we only spotted one truly negative comment: “I start to hate these kind of videos. The AI is actually so dumb…” This commenter also had a Clippy icon for their profile picture, signaling a pattern of general disgruntlement with the state of the world, capitalism and technology.

Skilaw had this to say about the AI-skeptics: “I don’t really understand. I think people are not ready yet to accept AI. It’s still new, this new thing. So people, it’s like they reject it a little because they don’t really understand it. But I think in a few years, people will understand and everybody will love it.”

Later, Skilaw adds, “I cannot get any haters because myself, I say that it’s bad in a way, you know? Even though I don’t think it’s bad. I think it’s really good.”

The why behind Skilaw AI

When asked what he hopes people get out of his videos, Skilaw says, “Just laugh, I hope. And yeah, I see many comments, people always laughing because it’s always so random and crazy and unexpected. So yeah, just hope I can brighten their days and just make them laugh, bring happiness. That’s all what it is about.” Whether you love AI or hate it, you can’t argue with that.