Onion Man / Man Holding Onions and Family

Submission 1,865

Part of a series on AI Art. [View Related Entries]

About

Onion Man or Man Holding Onions and Family is an AI-generated image showing a cartoon Black man with a somber expression and several arms, each of which is holding a figure relating to obligation and responsibility. The figures include a spouse, two children, a house and three different types of onions (one red, one green and one white or yellow). After the image was shared on Twitter / X in late November 2023, various posters online found the inclusion of three different kinds of onions highly questionable and identified it as a consequence of the image's AI generation.

Origin

The image was first posted by X user @debrat2k on November 25th, 2023, where it received over 2,300 likes and 6,400 quote tweets in roughly 48 hours (seen below).^[1] The account usually posts a variety of content, including other A-generated images.

Spread

As the image garnered attention on November 25th, 2023, commenters on the post questioned why the man in the piece of AI art held three different kinds of onions. Some argued that the prompt likely called for a "crying" man and that the AI art generator provided onions, knowing that when onions are cut they can cause eyes to water (example shown below).^[2]

Quote-tweets on the post joking about the onions grew increasingly prevalent as it spread, typically making fun of the image. For example, X user @superskrong posted in defense of the onions on November 25th, earning over 54,000 likes over the course of four days (seen below, left).^[3] On November 26th, user @TheAndrewNadeau posted about the burden of onions, earning 82,000 likes in three days (seen below, right).^[4]

Others joked that the empty hand was more interesting than the three onions and that the man would use the empty hand to cheat on his wife. For example, X user @Mimee-ilo posted about this on November 26th, earning over 46,000 likes in three days (seen below).^[5]

Responding to the vitality of the AI art post on November 27th, 2023, the original account defended the onions, writing that people should understand the centrality of onions to a man's life (seen below).^[6]