If you check out the official Pringles Twitter account right now, you’ll notice an odd pattern in the replies. Folks are responding to every boring tweet about new flavors and favorite snacks with an image of Donkey Kong that makes it look like he is shooting lightning out of his crotch. Emblazoned across this evocative image are the words “COCK BLAST.” So uh, what the fuck is going on?
We live in strange times. Even though most have just gotten used to it, the social media networks and online communities we use daily are filled with brands pretending to be people. They tweet, create memes, and even join in on popular discourse. It’s weird, even if we all sort of don’t notice it anymore. But there are folks out there who do like to fuck with the brands on social media. And one of these people is the reason every recent Pringles tweet receives hundreds of “Cock Blast” memes in the replies.
As reported by the Garbage Daily newsletter and writer Ryan Broderick, one person started all this. After doing some digging through all the replies, they discovered one account that seemed to always be the first to respond with the meme and which appeared to have been doing it longer than anyone else. So Broderick contacted this person, @TheKrustyKoopa, and asked the question you all are thinking right now: Why?
“A friend of mine tweeted saying he wanted people to spam Pringles’ Twitter comments with another image [it was a meme of a bug],” KrustyKoopa told Broderick. “But I made my own tweet telling people to spam the Donkey Kong [Cock Blast meme] instead. And it eventually spread to people outside of my friend group to the point where it just became its own thing.”
According to KrustyKoopa, there is no real organization around the meme or the subculture that has popped up in the replies to every banal Pringles tweet. This was just an example of an absurd anti-brand prank exploding in popularity. Maybe folks really hate Pringles? Or maybe people just love posting that cock blast meme? Who can say why this took off, but it did.
If you are wondering if this is part of some statement against how corporations have infiltrated social media and the internet, ruining so much of it and tricking people into caring about brands, that’s not the case. It was all just a joke that clicked with a lot of randos online and exploded in popularity.
“I don’t really remember there being any reason behind it, it was just a dumb joke that became big out of nowhere.”