Caricatures Of Tony Soprano Inspire A Wave Of AI-Generated 'Gabagool' Memes On TikTok, Reels

7 months ago 52

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The Gabagool Meme or the AI Gabagool Guy is a series of AI-generated videos where caricatures of Tony Soprano, meant to represent a stereotypical Italian-American man, discuss and talks about gabagool, an Italian-American slang term for the cured pork delicacy capicola. The memes, which typically use Sora AI, were popularized on TikTok and Instagram Reels in late January 2026.

Origin

In January 2026, caricatures of celebrities started to grow more popular as the subjects of memes on TikTok, with one example being the Crispy $5 memes.

On January 14th, 2026, TikToker @thesopranoscoin posted a video where three caricatures of characters from The Sopranos are placed above an image of some antipasto as a sound featuring someone talking in an Italian accent plays, garnering over 669,000 views in a week.

@thesopranoscoin «Ey ma, where’s the gabagool?» #soprano #thesopranos #gabagool #foryou #foryoupage ♬ Hey ma im really hungry – Hauz Kat

On January 15th, TikToker @joecat67 posted a video generated with Sora AI by @67_67_67 that begins with a carucature of Tony Soprano. He walks into a deli and asks for gabagool, but is told there is none, resulting in him trying to fight the deli worker and getting arrested. The video gained over 120,000 views in six days.

The caricature used in the video is by artist Alberto Russo.

@joecat67 Gabagool #saprano #gabagool #italian #trending #fyp ♬ original sound – Joecatisfat

Spread

The meme continued to spread over the following days, spreading from TikTok to Reels.

On January 16th, 2026, TikToker @joecat67 uploaded another video featuring the gabagool guy, where he successfully gets all the gabagool that a deli has available, garnering over 801,000 views in five days.

@joecat67 #italy #gabagool #trending #sora #saprano ♬ original sound – Joecatisfat

On January 18th, TikToker @dylan_bailey4 posted an AI-generated video of the gabagool guy exploding after being refused gabagool, garnering over 514,000 views in three days.

@dylan_bailey4 #gabagool #fyp #tony #forgetaboutit ♬ original sound – Gobagool

That same day, TikToker @jv16889 posted a video where the gabagool guy sings a song about gabagool after trying to get some at the deli, garnering over 2.2 million views in three days.

On January 19th, Instagram user jackoj_ck posted a gabagool AI video, garnering over 86,000 likes in two days.

@jv16889 #fypシ゚viral #gabagool #fyp #ai #follow ♬ original sound – jv16