Postapocalyptic life is having a moment on film and on TV, and Fallout is one of the reasons why.
The Prime Video series, adapted from the video game franchise of the same name, stars Ella Purnell (Yellowjackets) as a luxury fallout vault dweller who emerges into a postnuclear world in search of her father (Kyle MacLachlan, Twin Peaks) after years of hiding underground. Aaron Moten (Emancipation) is a member of the aboveground Brotherhood of Steel, while Walton Goggins (The Hateful Eight) is the Ghoul, a mutated bounty hunter and survivor of the destruction.
Fallout debuted on the streaming platform April 10 and has already been renewed for Season 2. According to Prime Video, the series had 65 million viewers in its first 16 days on the platform.
In addition to those on-platform views, fans are driving the buzz on social media with show-themed filters on TikTok and Instagram Reels. “What my Fallout character would look like,” made from one of several templates created on video-editing app CapCut, has been making the rounds most recently, garnering thousands of posts across the platforms.
The video templates, which add an AI filter over an existing image, mimic the postapocalyptic visual style of the video games and series, which also incorporate a 1950s aesthetic. The 1941 Ink Spots song “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire,” which is featured in the show as well as three versions of the video game, plays over the transformed image.
Chau Lam (@ChulliPink), a graphic designer in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, told Yahoo Entertainment that while she’s not a Fallout fan herself, she decided to create an AI template inspired by it after seeing how popular the show was on TikTok.
“I noticed that the TikTok and CapCut community is interested in content related to Fallout,” she said, “so I wanted to contribute my own small part to this trend by creating a Fallout template on CapCut.”
Lam’s “small part” has led to more than 475,000 uses of her Fallout template, and she said she’s been pleasantly surprised by the response.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect much when creating this,” Lam said. “It’s fortunate and wonderful for me.”
What she thinks is resonating most with users is the look of the template itself and its seeming ability to transform users into inhabitants of the series and video game worlds.
“This template captures the postapocalyptic and dusty atmosphere of the Fallout universe,” she said, “allowing users to immerse themselves in it.”
Fallout’s visual style has been referred to as “retrofuturistic,” “atompunk” and even “steampunk,” although the last has been reserved mostly for the AI filters.
“The main reason the world of Fallout looks like a continuation of the 1950s is because it’s designed to fit into a retrofuturistic aesthetic,” according to ScreenRant, which is a style considered futuristic in an earlier time period. “Essentially, Fallout took what people of the past imagined the future might look like and made it so those predictions came true.”
Executive producer Jonathan Nolan has referred to it as a “depiction of an Eisenhower-era America.” Both Prime Video and Kilter Films, which produces the series, declined to comment to Yahoo.
Others have called the aesthetic “atompunk,” which refers to a sci-fi, “atomic” look from a midcentury ’50s perspective. “Steampunk,” which is another sci-fi aesthetic but inspired by 19th century steam-powered technology instead of atomic, has been linked to individual social media posts rather than the aesthetic of the series or the video games themselves.
However fans define the series’ visual aesthetics, it’s clear many are eager to imagine themselves in the Fallout world.
CapCut digital creator @Gerar_r23 agrees with Lam that fans want to see themselves in the retrofuturistic action. The New York-based designer, whose name is Gerardo but who prefers to go by his handle (@CapcutNewYork on TikTok), told Yahoo Entertainment that his AI templates help facilitate that.
“It’s the ability to seamlessly transform real-life photos into AI imaginative, apocalyptic scenes,” he said. “By offering users the opportunity to envision themselves within these AI scenarios with intricate details, the AI template sparks creativity and allows for immersive storytelling experiences.”
Fans are responding. His CapCut template alone has been used more than 2.5 million times.
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