The AI-Generated 'Decline' of a London Suburb: How a Joke Became a Political Weapon

A slick, computer-generated video shows young men in puffer jackets sliding into a grimy, litter-strewn pool. The caption labels it a public water park in Croydon, south London. It’s a fiction, but one that has spawned dozens of imitators and millions of views across social platforms.

This clip is part of a burgeoning genre: hyper-realistic AI videos depicting Western cities in states of absurd decay. Often targeting neighborhoods like Croydon, they feed a broader online narrative that places like London, New York, or San Francisco are crumbling. Critics call it 'decline porn'—content that, whether satirical or not, often fuels racial resentment and anti-immigrant sentiment among viewers who mistake it for real footage.

For a new BBC podcast, we spoke to the creator behind the original Croydon videos, a man in his 20s from northwest England who uses the handle RadialB. He’s never been to Croydon. He says his goal was humor, not politics, and that the key to virality is making the fake look real enough to stop the scroll. 'The selling point is that they look real,' he explained.

His characters are 'roadmen,' a British slang term for urban youth. He calls them cultural archetypes that make for the 'funniest' scenes. While some videos carry small 'AI-generated' labels, many commenters are convinced. RadialB acknowledges racist reactions but says comments are filtered by platforms. He disavows political aims, yet his videos mock 'taxpayer-funded' projects and he casually suggests replacing politicians with 'roadmen.'

The technical leap in AI tools, he says, has made creating such convincing fakes simple. His content is now repurposed globally, sometimes by accounts posing as news outlets, amplifying the theme of urban decline. The trend intersects with real influencers; travel vlogger Kurt Caz recently faced accusations of using an AI-altered thumbnail to exaggerate London's dangers.

High-profile figures have echoed these decline themes. Elon Musk, speaking at an event last year, warned of Britain's 'destruction' through 'massive uncontrolled migration.'

While debates on crime and immigration are valid, this AI-driven content often operates in a fact-free zone. A recent YouGov poll found a majority of Britons believe London is unsafe, a view shared by only a third of the city's actual residents.

RadialB’s original TikTok was banned. He’s since started a new account, posting similar videos. His stated ambition remains to make people laugh by gaming the algorithm, not to shape opinion. But the political anger his 'artform' provokes is a consequence he readily acknowledges, even as he shrugs off responsibility for it.