Erling Haaland deepfakes rack up millions of views — but nobody seems to care

a viral video depicting erling haaland flinching at his reflection garnered over 31 million views on x, though it was actually a deepfake of chinese comedian jin long. despite corrections from fact-checkers, the clip continued to spread as part of a growing trend of ai-generated fan content in the sports world. this phenomenon, fueled by haaland's popularity in china as 'habao', indicates that gen z audiences are embracing 'fanon'—synthetic lore created by fans over canonical reality. the incident signals a pivot from deepfake anxiety to a landscape where ai-generated content is accepted as long as it fits a celebrity's established character. as athletes become 'open-source characters', fans now use ai tools to synthesize engagement on demand, blurring the line between official image and fan-created fiction.