Erling Haaland Is Everywhere at the World Cup. Most of It Is AI
Erling Haaland Is Everywhere at the World Cup. Most of It Is AI
埃尔林·哈兰德无处不在，但世界杯上的他大多是 AI
Last week, somewhere amid the World Cup frenzy, a now-viral video circulated of Norwegian striker Erling Haaland mid-mouthful in a restaurant, glancing left and flinching at his own reflection. One post on X sharing the video racked up more than 31 million views in mere days. But here’s the thing: It isn’t him. 上周，在世界杯的狂热氛围中，一段挪威前锋埃尔林·哈兰德在餐厅用餐时，因瞥见自己的倒影而惊吓缩头的视频在网上疯传。X（原推特）上一条分享该视频的帖子在短短几天内就获得了超过 3100 万次的观看量。但事实是：那根本不是他。
Fact checkers traced the footage to a slapstick skit by the Chinese comedian Jin Long, posted to TikTok in mid-June. The corrections were duly noted, and yet the clip kept traveling anyway. By the fourth week of the 2026 World Cup, the internet had already decided who Erling Haaland is. AI or not, in the video, Haaland was in character. 事实核查人员追溯发现，这段视频源自中国喜剧演员金龙于 6 月中旬发布在 TikTok 上的一段滑稽短剧。尽管更正声明已广而告之，但该片段依然在网络上持续传播。到了 2026 年世界杯的第四周，互联网已经“定义”了埃尔林·哈兰德的形象。无论是否由 AI 生成，视频中的哈兰德都完美契合了人们心中的角色设定。
If the old model of stardom was a white-knuckle grip on your own image, the new one, as evidenced in Haaland’s recent internet fame, is being a character so vivid, so relentlessly meme-able, that AI can do the hype thing for you. The celebrity, therefore, becomes something like an open-source character, only loosely tethered to the human who has the face. 如果说旧时代的明星模式是死死攥住自己的公众形象，那么正如哈兰德近期在网络上的走红所证明的那样，新模式则是成为一个如此鲜活、如此具有“模因（meme）”潜质的角色，以至于 AI 都能代你完成炒作。因此，名人变成了一种类似于“开源角色”的存在，与拥有这张脸的真人之间仅保持着松散的联系。
And the Haaland fake didn’t spawn from nowhere. It came out of China, where the striker has already become somewhat of a meme sensation. He has spent the past few months fronting a commercial for a Chinese herbal drink, gamely attempting Mandarin, being turned into song and being rechristened Habao (roughly, “Ha Baby”) by fans who delight in the gap between the on-pitch destroyer and the off-pitch golden retriever. As his popularity in China exploded, Haaland launched official Douyin and Weibo accounts, and quickly amassed millions of followers. The reflection clip was one artefact in an entire cottage industry of AI Haaland memes and edits, all riffing on the same joke. 哈兰德的“假视频”并非凭空出现。它源自中国，这位前锋在那里已经成为了一种模因现象。过去几个月里，他不仅代言了中国凉茶广告，还兴致勃勃地尝试说中文，被粉丝改编成歌曲，并被亲切地称为“哈宝”。粉丝们乐于看到他在球场上的“毁灭者”形象与场下“金毛寻回犬”般性格之间的反差。随着他在中国的人气爆发，哈兰德开通了抖音和微博官方账号，并迅速积累了数百万粉丝。那段倒影视频只是 AI 哈兰德模因和剪辑产业中的一个缩影，所有这些内容都在围绕同一个笑话进行创作。
What, then, actually happens when deepfake becomes fan art? This is increasingly how sports fandom works online. Athletes are no longer consumed solely through highlights or post-match interviews but as evolving characters with recognizable quirks and storylines. 那么，当深度伪造（Deepfake）成为粉丝艺术时，究竟发生了什么？这正是如今体育迷在网络上的互动方式。运动员不再仅仅通过比赛集锦或赛后采访被大众消费，而是作为拥有鲜明怪癖和故事线的“进化角色”存在。
They’re also now getting the full fandom treatment previously reserved for fictional characters, in lore, canon, character arcs, edits. A recent report from AI sports content firm WSC Sports found that Gen Z in particular feels more connected to individual athletes than they do teams, and 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. 他们现在也享受着此前仅限于虚构角色的“同人待遇”，包括背景设定、正史、角色弧光和二次创作。AI 体育内容公司 WSC Sports 的一份最新报告发现，Z 世代群体对个人运动员的认同感远超对球队的认同感；咨询公司奥纬咨询（Oliver Wyman）的一项调查也显示，运动员的社交媒体内容是驱动 Z 世代参与体育运动的最大单一因素。
So once a footballer becomes a character, the fans stop being mere spectators and can instead have a say in content. The “fanon,” which refers to the material the audience invents to fill the gaps the canon leaves, is now highly susceptible to AI. You no longer need the athlete to generate the lore; the audience can synthesize it on demand, and the character absorbs it seamlessly. It isn’t surprising, then, that Haaland’s deepfake was so readily embraced online. The content doesn’t have to be real, it just needs to fit the character fans have created. 因此，一旦足球运动员成为一个“角色”，粉丝就不再仅仅是观众，而是可以参与到内容创作中。所谓的“同人设定（fanon）”——即观众为了填补官方设定空白而创作的内容——现在极易受到 AI 的影响。你不再需要运动员本人来创造故事；观众可以按需合成，而角色本身也能无缝吸收这些内容。因此，哈兰德的深度伪造视频在网上如此轻易地被接受也就不足为奇了。内容不必是真实的，它只需要符合粉丝们所塑造的角色形象即可。
Yet, perhaps what the Haaland-ification of it all suggests is a strange shift away from a mere深度伪造 panic. Though much of the public was, in fact, fooled by the AI video, a meaningful share of the audience is actively opting in and sharing nonetheless. 然而，这种“哈兰德化”现象或许暗示了一种微妙的转变：人们不再仅仅对深度伪造感到恐慌。尽管公众中确实有很大一部分人被 AI 视频欺骗了，但仍有相当一部分受众是主动选择参与并转发的。
And fans have been doing this sort of thing for years. When the @deeptomcruise account started posting eerily perfect Tom Cruise deepfakes on TikTok in 2021, the response was delight in the millions. Similarly, an AI-generated track mimicking Drake and The Weeknd that appeared in 2023 created its own fan hype, getting streamed enthusiastically before the labels could get it pulled. 粉丝们多年来一直都在做类似的事情。当 @deeptomcruise 账号在 2021 年开始在 TikTok 上发布极其逼真的汤姆·克鲁斯深度伪造视频时，收获的是数百万人的喜爱。同样，2023 年出现的一首模仿德雷克（Drake）和威肯（The Weeknd）的 AI 生成歌曲也引发了粉丝狂热，在唱片公司将其下架之前，它就已经获得了热烈的播放量。
That same year, the Balenciaga Pope fooled half the internet for an afternoon, which actually resulted in more praise for the Balenciaga coat than it did concern over AI. Which just goes to show that if you like someone or something enough, you’ll suspend your disbelief and just roll with it. 同年，“巴黎世家教皇”的照片欺骗了半个互联网，但结果是人们对那件巴黎世家外套的赞美远多于对 AI 的担忧。这恰恰说明，如果你足够喜欢某个人或某件事，你就会选择暂停怀疑，欣然接受。
After all, Haaland was always going to be a star of this tournament—Norway’s first World Cup since 1998, a striker chasing the Golden Boot—but it’s his audacious displays of personality off the pitch that made him its unlikely main character. Modern footballers are supposed to be monomaniac automatons, media-trained and brand-protected. The Haaland canon is pretty much the opposite. His personal Snapchat account of 3.3 million followers and climbing is a masterclass in unpolished celebrity. 毕竟，哈兰德注定会成为本届世界杯的明星——这是挪威自 1998 年以来首次参加世界杯，而他也是金靴奖的有力竞争者。但正是他在场下大胆展现的个性，让他成为了本届赛事意想不到的“主角”。现代足球运动员通常被要求成为经过媒体培训、品牌保护、专注于比赛的“机器人”。而哈兰德的形象几乎完全相反。他拥有 330 万粉丝且仍在增长的个人 Snapchat 账号，堪称“未经修饰的名人形象”教科书。
Through the account, Haaland has become a lovable internet persona, spawning countless memes, edits, and fan interactions that treat him more like a recurring character than an athlete. The joke, mostly, is the contradiction. On the pitch, Haaland is a frightening 6-foot-5-inch Viking-coded goal machine whose celebration face looks like something carved into a longship. Off it, he’s posting nostril-angle selfies, bald filters, Q&As, and comedic videos. 通过这个账号，哈兰德成为了一个可爱的网络红人，催生了无数模因、剪辑和粉丝互动，人们对待他更像是一个常驻角色，而非单纯的运动员。笑点主要在于这种反差：在球场上，哈兰德是一个身高 6 英尺 5 英寸、充满维京气息的恐怖进球机器，他的庆祝表情看起来就像是雕刻在长船上的图腾；而在场下，他却发布着鼻孔视角的自拍、光头滤镜、问答和搞笑视频。
French player Kylian Mbappé is another footballer meme-ified and AI-ified amidst the internet’s current fixation with the World Cup. Making its rounds online, the “Dictator Mbappé” AI memes recast him as Mao and Kim Jong Un, usually soundtracked—with the internet’s flair for tonal chaos—by an ominous nasheed. 法国球员基利安·姆巴佩是另一个在互联网世界杯狂热中被“模因化”和“AI 化”的球员。在网上流传的“独裁者姆巴佩”AI 模因中，他被重新塑造成毛泽东和金正恩的形象，通常还配上了一段阴森的伊斯兰圣歌（nasheed）——这充分体现了互联网对混乱基调的偏好。
Despite the roots of the meme actually going back as early as 2023 after a dispute over a kebab joke, it has resurrected in this year’s tournament tenfold, showing up this time in AI-rendered fiction too (much like when Dictator Mbappé, naturally, shows up in Ancient Greece). Hype in football has always worked this way at some level; every transfer rumor runs on the fans’ appetite to believe. 尽管这个模因的根源可以追溯到 2023 年一场关于烤肉串笑话的争论，但它在今年的赛事中以十倍的规模复活，甚至出现在了 AI 渲染的虚构作品中（就像“独裁者姆巴佩”自然地出现在古希腊一样）。足球界的炒作在某种程度上一直如此；每一个转会传闻都建立在粉丝们“愿意相信”的渴望之上。
But the old fantasy machine needed raw material from Haaland doing real things in the real world. And although Haaland, to give the guy his due, does indeed pump out plenty of comedic content on his own, AI now enables the fans to crank out new material manufactured to spec. The old celebrity economy depended on access to the star. The new one depends only on the audience’s willingness to keep the story going. 但旧时代的幻想机器需要哈兰德在现实世界中做真实事情作为素材。尽管哈兰德本人确实产出了大量喜剧内容，但 AI 现在让粉丝们能够按需定制生产新素材。旧的名人经济依赖于对明星的接触，而新的经济模式仅依赖于观众让故事继续下去的意愿。