Topline
The marketing director of McDonald’s praised young TikTok users in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday for launching the ultra-viral “Grimace shake” social media trend—in which users pretend to choke and die in gruesome ways after consuming the vibrant milkshake inspired by the purple monster character—and denied the company had a hand in creating the trend.
Grimace in the 94th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 24, 2020. (Photo by Eugene … [+]
Key Facts
Guillaume Huin, the company’s social media director, credited TikTok content creator Austin Frazier for making one of the first satirical horror Grimace shake videos, in which he takes a sip of the drink and feigns death on the floor.
Although McDonald’s did not launch the TikTok trend itself, Huin said the company contributed by reintroducing the decades-old McDonald’s character, who has had few public appearances over the last two decades, and by letting Grimace “take over” the company’s social media accounts.
The company was initially hesitant to address the trend and had to take time to process and understand, with Huin stating his first text to his team was he was “not sure we should jump in.”
Huin said the company didn’t want to ignore the trend, feeling that would be disconnecting from fans, but didn’t want to encourage it, either, which Huin said would be self-serving.
McDonald’s jokingly addressed the viral videos on June 27, tweeting a picture of Grimace captioned: “meee pretending i don’t see the grimace shake trendd,” which Huin said was an effort to acknowledge the trend in a sweet, genuine way, “as Grimace would.”
Huin praised the trend as “peak absurdist Gen Z humor,” and said the videos were “a level of genius creativity and organic fun that I could never dream about or plan for.”
Huin added the company has seen billions in social media reach and millions of engagement and mentions, and the Grimace shake trended on Twitter and TikTok multiple times.
Crucial Quote
“Hours of watching, reading the comments, trying to learn and genuinely understand helped us see what this was about: brilliant creativity, unfiltered fun, peak absurdist Gen Z humor, just the way a new generation of creators and consumers play with brands,” Huin said.
Key Background
McDonald’s introduced a purple, berry-flavored shake in honor of Grimace’s birthday on June 12. The shake and its namesake character soon became a meme, as many young TikTok users posted short horror videos in which drinking just one sip of the milkshake had “fatal” consequences, like convulsing, vomiting purple goo or being hunted by the character himself. Some of the Grimace videos are short, like one video liked 2 million times in which a creator sips the shake and ends up convulsing in a tree—but other videos became lengthy, ambitious horror productions. In one viral TikTok with 3 million likes, model and TikTok star Haley Kalil tries the shake before bleeding purple goo from her nose, becoming possessed and climbing on the ceiling. Some celebrities even joined in on the trend, like Courteney Cox, who posted a video in which her dog sips the Grimace shake and turns into a large monster.
Big Number
2.5 billion. That’s how many collective views videos using the hashtag #grimace have amassed on TikTok. Videos tagged with #grimaceshake have 2.4 billion views.
Further Reading
The McDonald’s Grimace Shake’s Viral (And Gruesome) TikTok Trend, Explained (Forbes)
McDonald’s Grimace breaks his silence on TikTok trend (NBC News)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/07/12/mcdonalds-credits-peak-absurdist-gen-z-humor-for-grimace-shake-tiktok-trend/