The Curious Case of AI-Generated Doki Doki Literature Club Stories

A recent study presented at Purdue University’s MFS Cultural AI Conference has caught the attention of many, especially in the gaming community. The research focused on half a million anonymous conversations with ChatGPT using WildChat, and it unveiled some truly bizarre trends among users, particularly one standout case.

The objective of the study was to investigate the frequent prompts requesting fanfiction, which turned out to be incredibly popular. According to the researchers, over one-third of the conversations revolved around generating some form of fictional content, whether it was original stories, scripts, roleplay scenarios, worldbuilding, or even fanfiction and erotica.

The researchers categorized users into two groups based on their prompting styles: story cyclers and infinite story demanders. Story cyclers like to spin out various iterations of a narrative for a while before switching gears. In contrast, infinite story demanders continuously request the same story or something very similar for extended periods.

One particularly dedicated infinite story demander stood out for their fixation on Doki Doki Literature Club, a popular visual novel. Over several months, this user produced thousands of variations of a storyline where one of the characters, typically Natsuki, gave birth to a daughter often named Sakura—possibly a nod to a character from the Naruto series.

If you’re a fan of Doki Doki Literature Club, you might find this choice both puzzling and entertaining. If you haven’t played it yet, it’s available for free on platforms like Steam and itch.io, and trust me, it’s a five-hour experience you won’t forget!

This prolific user wasn’t alone in their creativity, either. The study highlighted that just 2% of users accounted for over 80% of the content in the fiction category. While the pregnancy-themed stories skewed the overall data, the most requested universes for fanfiction included not just Doki Doki Literature Club but also League of Legends, Freedom Planet, and Naruto.

The dataset was derived from WildChat, an open ChatGPT platform where users engaged in conversations with the understanding that their contributions would be anonymized and used for academic purposes. The first batch of data, compiled from April 2023 to May 2024, included over 500,000 exchanges for researchers to analyze.

What’s particularly intriguing about this study is how it contrasts with conventional fanfiction, like that found on Archive of Our Own (A03), where stories based on franchises like Harry Potter or My Hero Academia are much more prevalent. Human-written fanfiction is typically a communal effort, filled with encouragement and shared passion among fans. On the other hand, AI-generated stories often feel more solitary and self-indulgent, even if they sometimes veer into odd territory, like imagining pregnant characters.

As gaming and AI continue to intersect, it’ll be fascinating to see how these trends evolve and how the community responds to such unique forms of storytelling!