The Ostagram Spaghetti Mashup trend emerged from the use of the Ostagram website, which utilizes neural networks to blend the content of one image with the style of another. In 2016, users began frequently choosing a photo of spaghetti as the style filter, applying it to portraits of famous figures or historical paintings. This resulted in eerie yet comical images where the subjects appeared to be constructed entirely out of pasta and sauce. The meme gained massive traction on Reddit and Tumblr, representing a bizarre intersection of early AI art and surrealist internet humor, often paired with Italian stereotypes or existential dread.