Overload opacity: Countervisuality and glitch aesthetics in AI-Generated Brainrot on Instagram

How AI-generated memes negotiate between visual resistance and algorithmic co-option? By synthesizing Mirzoeff’s “countervisuality” and Glissant’s “right to opacity,” this article examines Italian Brainrot, a 2025 meme phenomenon, and introduces “overload opacity” as a platform-native aesthetic strategy in which sensory excess achieves hypervisibility while resisting interpretive legibility. Data were compiled from public Instagram pages in June–July 2025, featuring content posted between March–May 2025. The analysis focuses on six high-engagement posts using a five-axis overload framework and close visual readings. Findings indicate that these memes enact countervisual refusal through deliberate incoherence, flooding perception with incompatible stimuli that resist singular interpretation while leveraging algorithmic rewards for affective intensity and novelty.