It seems every month there’s a new trend on TikTok popping off where millions of users are engaging in some bizarre ritualistic undertaking that borders on mass insanity. The newest such trend involving the Grimace Shake…is no different.
The amusing trend has adopted McDonald’s purple berry Grimace Milkshake to be a prop at the center of the latest controversy. It involves obtaining the Grimace Milkshake, drinking it, and in a strange twist – ending up looking like the victim of an alien-related murder.
The viral #GrimaceShake trend is at 420 million views on TikTok and swiftly climbing. It shows a cacophony of videos made by anyone from kids to teens and everyone in between, imbibing of the Grimace Shake, and snap-cutting to a purple massacre where the “drinker” becomes laid out with splatters of Shake everywhere.
Various iterations of introductions precede the shake-drinking madness. Like this one, “I love you Grimace. Happy Birthday.”
Most of the videos are showing the “date” of ingestion, pretending to pass out, or followed by crime scene photos showing Grimace Shake victims in their final pose – ranging from a bathtub scene, to laying on the side of the road covered in purple slime.
Many have contorted faces suggesting a violent end, an indeliberate nod to the movie The Ring?
Within the past month, McDonald’s decided to ring in Grimace’s birthday by awknowledging his 51st anniversary as a mascot. They released the Grimace Birthday Meal, Cheesy Bacon Jalapeno Quarter Pounder, and the berry-flavored Grimace Milkshake to celebrate.
The franchise almost most assuredly didn’t see this twist coming. Although, it is playing out to be an excellent form of free marketing for McDonald’s.
It doesn’t seem to be a testament, however, to the deliciousness of the shake because the trend revolves around…wasting it, using it as a shocking display of purple macabre, violence. A mere prop.
