What is Bing AI Characters Doing 9/11?

Bing AI Characters Doing 9/11 is a series of AI-generated images showing cartoon and pop culture figures piloting planes toward the Twin Towers, made by users bypassing Bing Image Creator's content filters in late 2023.

Where did Bing AI Characters Doing 9/11 come from?

The earliest documented post came from Twitter user @AnimeSerbia on September 30th, 2023, with a Tom and Jerry variant. @TolstoyBB's October 3rd Neon Genesis Evangelion image then set off a thread of similar replies.

What does Bing AI Characters Doing 9/11 mean?

The images work as dark humor and as evidence that Bing Image Creator's filters could be defeated with oblique prompts like 'flying towards two skyscrapers' instead of blocked terms such as 'twin towers' or '9/11'.

How do you use Bing AI Characters Doing 9/11?

Users generate an image on Bing Image Creator pairing a familiar character with a cockpit above two tall buildings, then share it with a short caption like @TolstoyBB's 'Thank you, Microsoft Bing'.

Is Bing AI Characters Doing 9/11 still popular?

The series peaked during the first week of October 2023 after 404 Media's coverage, and now works mainly as a reference point when people discuss AI image moderation failures.

Bing AI Characters Doing 9/11

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Published October 30, 2026

Bing AI Characters Doing 9/11 is a series of AI-generated images showing cartoon and pop culture figures piloting planes into the Twin Towers, made by users who tricked Bing Image Creator into bypassing its violence and terrorism filters in late September and early October 2023. The joke spotlighted how fragile Microsoft's new generative tool really was, and by October 4th, 2023, 404 Media was documenting versions starring Kirby, SpongeBob and Walter White.

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Overview

Posts in the series look almost identical: a plane cockpit framed by two skyscrapers on a bright September morning, with a familiar character seated at the controls. Shinji and Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion piloted a jet in @TolstoyBB's October 3rd post3. Tom and Jerry had appeared two days earlier in a tweet from @AnimeSerbia2, and on October 4th @PMDucktle contributed a Lego minifigure version4 while @rwvessol posted a Fullmetal Alchemist variant5. The humor sits in the gap between the softness of the characters and the gravity of the event they are shown causing.

This exploit worked because Bing's filters blocked literal references but not oblique ones. Prompts naming 'World Trade Center,' 'twin towers' or '9/11' threw errors, while 'flying towards two skyscrapers' slipped through1. 404 Media writer Samantha Cole reproduced the gap with Kirby, SpongeBob SquarePants and Breaking Bad's Walter White, giving the Bing AI Characters Doing 9/11 series its best-known cast beyond the opening Tom and Jerry post1.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Twitter / 404 Media (viral spread)

Creator

@AnimeSerbia

Date

2023

On September 30th, 2023, Twitter user @AnimeSerbia posted the earliest documented example, showing Tom and Jerry at the controls of a plane on 9/112. The tweet picked up over 4,200 retweets and 66,000 likes in its first week6. Three days later, Twitter user @TolstoyBB uploaded a version with Shinji and Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion steering a jet toward the Twin Towers, captioning it 'Thank you, Microsoft Bing'3.

Replies to @TolstoyBB turned into a thread of further attempts. On October 4th, @PMDucktle posted a Lego minifigure version4 and @rwvessol posted one featuring Fullmetal Alchemist's Elric brothers5. Neither reply drew the same traction6, but together they established the format Samantha Cole covered at 404 Media the same week1.

How It Spread

404 Media's October 4th, 2023 writeup carried the format out of the reply chain and into tech press. Samantha Cole's article walked readers through the exact filter workaround, naming 'flying towards two skyscrapers' as the prompt that defeated Bing's blocks on 'World Trade Center' and '9/11'1. She published her own generated examples with Kirby, SpongeBob SquarePants and Walter White1.

Her piece framed the images less as shock humor than as evidence that Microsoft, a company famous for brand caution, could not keep its own image generator from producing terrorism scenes involving familiar characters from film and TV1. Know Your Meme catalogued the Bing AI Characters Doing 9/11 series within the same window, listing the Evangelion, Lego and Fullmetal Alchemist posts alongside the 404 Media coverage6.

Timeline

2023-09-30

Twitter user @AnimeSerbia posts the earliest documented example, a Tom and Jerry Bing image.

2023-10-03

@TolstoyBB posts the Shinji and Asuka Neon Genesis Evangelion variant with the caption 'Thank you, Microsoft Bing.'

2023-10-04

@PMDucktle posts a Lego version and @rwvessol posts a Fullmetal Alchemist version in the reply thread.

2023-10-04

404 Media publishes Samantha Cole's writeup documenting the filter workaround and generating Kirby, SpongeBob and Walter White examples.

How to Use This Meme

Users generate an image on Bing Image Creator by pairing a familiar character with a cockpit scene above two tall buildings, then post it with a short caption. @TolstoyBB's 'Thank you, Microsoft Bing' set the common convention of thanking Microsoft directly for the output3.