I Was Scrolling and Then I Saw a Pregnant Strawberry

AI minidramas (also known as fruit dramas) are short, algorithmically distributed generative AI video series featuring anthropomorphized characters that have recently emerged as a widespread phenomenon on social media platforms. This paper argues that despite their seemingly innocuous aesthetic, these videos reproduce deeply gendered narrative structures in which female characters are systematically associated with moral transgression, sexual betrayal, and reproductive capacity, and that several plots also encode the logic of racialization, i.e., the process by which visible bodily difference is morally loaded. Drawing on feminist film theory, critical race theory, and platform studies, it further argues that the generative AI aesthetic of these videos, characterized by softness, roundness, and visual cuteness, functions as a mechanism of aesthetic laundering, neutralizing the ideological weight of these narratives and enabling their circulation despite content moderation systems. This paper approaches these questions through personal observation and close reading, reflecting on the specific affordances of generative AI that make this phenomenon both possible and culturally consequential for the field of computational creativity.