No, That Giant Hairball You Saw Rolling Through the Streets of New York Over the Weekend Wasn’t AI

Social media users who spotted footage of an enormous ball of hair rolling through New York streets over the weekend were quick to assume it was AI-generated. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t. The installation, called The Tumblehair, is a real, physical prop built by haircare brand K18 to promote its new FutureIQ Hair Longevity Serum ($120).

The larger-than-life sphere that’s literally as big as a car is designed to represent 161 billion strands of hair, a mind-blowing figure K18 says corresponds to the amount of hair New Yorkers could collectively retain using the new serum. The brand cites clinical data showing users retained up to 19,000 more hairs after 90 days of use.

The Tumblehair made its way through several Manhattan neighborhoods over the weekend, including Midtown, the West Village, Chinatown and the Seaport, drawing double-takes from passersby and a wave of attention online, where many viewers initially mistook the footage for an AI-generated image or video.

The installation is set to make its next stop this Wednesday at Sephora Meatpacking, where it will anchor K18’s “Hair Longevity Lab” activation. The pop-up will offer complimentary scalp analyses, one-on-one consultations with K18’s education team, hands-on demonstrations of the FutureIQ product line and a claw machine. Customers who purchase the FutureIQ Hair Longevity Serum on-site will receive a complimentary scalp gua sha with engraving.

K18 says the stunt is meant to draw attention to premature hair aging, a process the brand describes as largely invisible until significant thinning has already occurred. By building a physical representation of hair loss at an outsized scale, the company aims to make what it calls “an invisible biological process impossible to ignore.”