Predictably, people want to rail Samsung’s rejected AI mascot

Samsung is in the news for an unexpected reason — everyone wants to smooch a new mascot character that was created for the brand. A design firm named Lightfarm created these images with a marketing company owned by Samsung, but the final product was never incorporated into any kind of campaign. Instead, the images were stored on the Lightfarm site for some time until the company deleted the post.

Now Samantha Samsung lives on, thanks to a sudden burst of popularity over the long weekend. She’s a bright-eyed, perky lady who likes jamming to tunes on her Samsung phone, browsing apps, and texting friends. She’s also the new love interest of seemingly the entire internet, which became enamored with her overnight.

Through the long weekend, the internet created a bunch of Samsung content. Much of it is not safe for work; the “rule34” subreddit is absolutely flooded with smutty Samantha content. She’s also taking off on TikTok. It is a genuinely appealing character model, like a Persona character run through a Pixar design, so it’s not a complete surprise that she’s popular.

Samsung already has a Siri and Alexa equivalent; their phones come equipped with Bixby. It’s possible that Samantha is taking off because we never actually have to live with her, or see her trotted out for endless viral marketing campaigns. We will never have to tell Samantha Samsung “Silence, brand,” and she will never pop up with some note from your phone. Or maybe it’s just another case of the internet becoming suddenly obsessed with a female character to the point where it dominates the zeitgeist — it wouldn’t be the first time.