You’ve seen her. If you spent any time on the weird side of YouTube in the mid-2000s, you definitely saw her. She’s pale, wearing a yellow sundress, and her singing is—to put it lightly—deeply unsettling. People call her the i feel fantastic robot, though her real name is Tara. She’s the star of a video that launched a thousand urban legends, sparked police investigations, and basically invented the "uncanny valley" genre of internet horror long before "Backrooms" or "Skibidi Toilet" were even a glimmer in a creator’s eye.
The video is simple. It's grainy. A mannequin-like figure stands in a room, moving its head and arms with stiff, pneumatic jerks. "I feel fantastic... hey, hey, hey," she croons in a digitized, monotone voice. It’s the kind of thing that makes your skin crawl because your brain can't decide if it’s looking at a person or a machine. But beneath the creepypasta layers of "hidden bodies in the backyard" and "serial killer trophies," there is a real, surprisingly human story about an inventor who just wanted to build a pop star.
Why the i feel fantastic robot terrifies us
The technical term for what you feel when watching Tara is the Uncanny Valley. This concept, first proposed by robotics professor Masahiro Mori in 1970, suggests that as robots look more human, we like them more—until they look almost human, but not quite. At that point, the likeness becomes repulsive. The i feel fantastic robot is the poster child for this effect.
Her eyes don't quite track. Her mouth moves independently of the syllables. It feels wrong.
Honestly, the internet didn't help. Because the original video was uploaded with very little context, people filled in the blanks with nightmares. The most famous theory suggested that the robot’s creator, a man named John Bergeron, was a murderer. The legend claimed he dressed Tara in his victim’s clothes and that the outdoor shots in the video—showing a patch of woods—were actually a reveal of where the bodies were buried. It’s total nonsense, obviously. But in the early days of the social web, this kind of lore spread like wildfire.
The real story of John Bergeron and Tara
John Bergeron wasn't a killer. He was an enthusiast. Specifically, he was a guy interested in music, robotics, and the intersection of the two. He built Tara (short for "The Android Ready Assembler," though that's more of a backronym) in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Bergeron's goal was actually quite ambitious for the time. He wanted to create the world's first android pop star. Think about it: this was years before Hatsune Miku took over stadiums in Japan or AI-generated influencers started scoring brand deals on Instagram. Bergeron was ahead of the curve; he just lacked the multi-million dollar budget of a tech firm.
He used a mannequin frame, some basic motors, and a voice synthesizer. The "I Feel Fantastic" song was one of several tracks he programmed. He even had a website, AndroidWorld.com, where he sold CDs of Tara’s music. Yeah, you could actually buy an entire album of that digitized singing.
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The technical limitations of 2004
Working with consumer-grade hardware in 2004 was a nightmare. To get Tara to move, Bergeron used a series of hardware controllers that were often used for holiday displays or haunted house attractions. If you watch the video closely, you can see the jerky movements are the result of simple servos. It wasn't high-tech AI. It was basically a very sophisticated animatronic you'd find at a knock-off Chuck E. Cheese.
The voice was generated using old-school Text-to-Speech (TTS) software. This is why the cadence is so bizarre. It doesn't have the "prosody"—the natural rhythm and intonation—of human speech. When she says "hey, hey, hey," the software is just triggering a raw sound file. It’s creepy to us now because we’re used to Siri and Alexa, which sound almost human. In 2004, this was just what computers sounded like.
Debunking the "Deep Woods" mystery
One of the biggest reasons the i feel fantastic robot video went viral was a specific cut in the footage. Most of the video is Tara singing in a room. Then, suddenly, there’s a brief, shaky shot of a patch of grass and trees outside.
- The Myth: This is where the creator buried his victims.
- The Reality: It was just b-roll.
Bergeron likely included the outdoor shot to show a change of scenery or perhaps to test the camera's light balance. In the context of a low-budget music video, it’s just filler. But to a bored teenager on 4chan in 2008, it looked like a crime scene. This is a classic example of "slenderman-style" storytelling where the lack of information creates a vacuum that fear quickly fills.
The clothing also fueled the fire. People pointed out that Tara changes outfits. Some thought the clothes belonged to "disappeared" women. In reality, Bergeron was just trying to give his "pop star" a wardrobe. If you're trying to market a singer, you don't keep them in the same outfit for every song.
Where is Tara now?
This is where the story gets a bit sad. After the video became a cult hit and a source of genuine harassment, John Bergeron disappeared from the internet. His website went dark. The domain was eventually bought by someone else.
The robot herself? No one knows for sure. Most likely, she's sitting in a storage unit or a garage in the United States, or she was dismantled for parts years ago. There have been several "reappearances" on YouTube and TikTok, but these are almost certainly hoaxes or recreations by fans of the macabre.
The original tapes were likely recorded on DV tape or even VHS, which explains the degraded quality that adds so much to the atmosphere. That "shitty" quality is actually a hallmark of the Analog Horror genre that exists today. Without Tara, we might not have The Mandela Catalogue or Marble Hornets.
The legacy of the "I Feel Fantastic" robot
We shouldn't just look at this as a spooky meme. It’s actually a milestone in digital culture. It represents the first time the general public grappled with the "human-ness" of digital entities on a mass scale.
Today, we have "Digital Humans" created by companies like Unreal Engine that are indistinguishable from real people. We have AI voice clones that can mimic any singer perfectly. Tara was the crude, clunky ancestor of all of this. She showed us that we are deeply uncomfortable with things that mimic us poorly.
Why we still talk about her
- Nostalgia for the "Old Internet": There was a time when the web felt like a wild, unregulated frontier where you could stumble upon something truly inexplicable.
- The Mystery Factor: Because Bergeron never went on a press tour or did a "behind the scenes" documentary, the mystery remains preserved in amber.
- Pure Aesthetic: The yellow dress against the white skin is visually striking. It's unintentional art.
What you can learn from the Tara phenomenon
If you're a creator or just someone interested in how stories go viral, the i feel fantastic robot is a masterclass in accidental branding. It teaches us that ambiguity is the most powerful tool for engagement. If Bergeron had explained everything in the video description, no one would remember her today.
It also serves as a reminder to be skeptical of internet "investigations." Thousands of people were convinced a crime had been committed based on a shaky camera shot of some trees. We see this today with TikTok "sleuths" who ruin lives by making wild accusations based on zero evidence. The Tara story is a harmless version of a very dangerous human tendency: the need to find a dark pattern in random data.
If you want to dive deeper into the technical side of how these robots were built, you should look into the history of animatronics in the 80s and 90s. Look up the work of people like Aaron Fechter, the creator of the Rock-afire Explosion. You'll see the same pneumatic tech, just used for entertainment instead of experimental pop music.
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To wrap this up: the i feel fantastic robot isn't a ghost, a victim, or a monster. She’s a piece of folk art. She’s a monument to a guy who had a weird dream and a limited budget.
Next steps for the curious
If you want to see how far we've come since Tara, do a search for "Ameca robot" or "Boston Dynamics' Atlas." The contrast is staggering. While Tara could barely move her wrists, modern robots can perform backflips and hold conversations using GPT-4.
However, even with all that tech, Ameca still feels a little "off" to some people. The Uncanny Valley isn't a bug in our brains; it's a feature. It’s our biological radar for things that aren't quite right. And Tara? She’ll always be the queen of that valley.
Check out the original video again, but this time, try to see it through John Bergeron's eyes. See it as a DIY project rather than a horror movie. It changes the experience entirely. You stop feeling scared and start feeling a weird kind of sympathy for a plastic lady in a yellow dress who just wanted to feel fantastic.
Research References:
- The Uncanny Valley, Masahiro Mori (1970).
- Android World archived archives (1999-2005).
- YouTube original upload history (ref: "Creepy/Weird" playlists circa 2006).
- Technical specs for 12V DC Linear Actuators used in hobbyist robotics.