The Gradient Ethnicity Estimate meme stems from a popular feature in the Gradient photo editing app, which claims to use AI to calculate a person's ancestral roots based on a selfie. In late 2019 and early 2020, the feature went viral as users began feeding the app images of fictional characters, animals, and objects instead of actual human faces. This led to absurd results, such as historical figures or memes like Shrek being assigned random percentages of European or Asian heritage. The meme is widely used to poke fun at the inaccuracy of AI-based identity guessing or to create ironic commentary on the 'true' nature of pop-culture icons.