When corporate creatives launch new products and campaigns, they might hope that these products inspire a viral social media response with millions of views and interactions. It’s the type of advertisement you can’t pay for. And it’s free. It’s the perfect scenario for a company.
But if that social media trend includes people pretending to die after ingesting your product, that might not be so great. That’s what’s happening with McDonald’s and its new Grimace Shake.
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The Grimace Shake was meant to celebrate the purple character's birthday.
Grimace is one of McDonald’s many mascots. The purple blob was first introduced in 1971 and quickly became Ronald McDonald’s best friend because of his popularity, according to the Daytona Beach News Journal. Grimace, through the use of McDonald’s Twitter account, announced June 6 that new shakes would be available in celebration of his birthday on June 12. These shakes, described as having a blueberry flavor, are only available while supplies last.
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Someone who goes by @Thefrazmaz on Tiktok was the first to post the meme.
What was supposed to be a fun little offering has turned into something a bit more bizarre. On June 13, the day after the milkshake was released, TikToker Fraz, aka @thefrazmaz, posted the first Grimace Shake “death” video. In the TikTok, Franz says, "Yo, I just got the new Grimace milkshake from McDonald’s. I’m so excited to try this. Happy birthday, Grimace.”
He takes a long sip from the straw, and then in the next frame, we see him sprawled out on the floor, the purple milkshake oozing around his mouth. The words from David Kushner’s "Daylight" play in the background: “Oh, I love it and I hate it at the same time.”
Tiktoks featuring the trend have been viewed hundreds of millions of times.
It’s … odd. But sometimes the things that take off online have no rhyme or reason. Since Fraz’s video was published, which has been viewed more than 2 million times, the trend has been repeated over and over and over again. Thus far, the #grimaceshake hashtag has 607.3 million views.
Some of the videos are a bit disturbing, but others are kind of cool.
As a millennial, I don’t get it. And some of the TikToks are disturbing, many of which have been created by teenagers. Gotta push boundaries, I guess.
Still, I have to admit that some of the editing skills are impressive. The Grimace Shake video from Zach King is edited impeccably. It’s so well done that people in his comments section actually jumped when they saw it.
Another creator took on the challenge from the perspective of a McDonald’s employee. In a video of himself making a milkshake in the kitchen, the boy wrote, “McDonald’s employees making their 500th shake of the day knowing it’s just gonna end up all over the ground somewhere.”
McDonald's has responded to the trend.
With all of this attention, there would have been no way McDonald’s could have missed this trend. They’ve seen it, and they used their Twitter to address it, in likely the only way the company could.
In a tweet on Tuesday that has been pinned to the top of the page, Grimace writes, “meee pretending i don't see the grimace shake trendd.”
Even if the kids are pretending they’re dying from these shakes, they’re still buying them, so I’m sure McDonald’s isn’t all that concerned.
