If you’re in the Wendy’s at 15th and Chestnut next Friday and you hear someone shouting “I’ll take a Double Triple Bossy Deluxe on a raft!” no, you’re not having a flashback or getting sucked into a Friday the 13th-induced alternate reality. You’re just experiencing the latest in harmless trolling memes.
Setting up Facebook events to yell viral catchphrases from SpongeBob Squarepants is apparently the new thing in college-age social media.
Right now, in addition to the Wendy’s event, there’s at least two others set for Center City this month, and both are immensely popular. The one at Max Brenner on Oct. 22 (with the direction to shout “CHOCOLATE!”) has 3.7k people interested, and the one at McDonald’s on Oct. 28 has piqued 4.8k souls interested in screeching “Rev up those fryers!” as they enter the Golden Arches outpost at 17th and Walnut.
If you’re wondering what the point of these events is, well, there isn’t one.
“I’m just a struggling college student who was bored in class and wanted to get a piece of the viral craze,” UArts senior Jeremy Berkman told Billy Penn. The graphic design major said he’s already “been recognized on Tinder” as organizer of the McD’s event, but he’s still not certain where the whole idea originated.
Asked if this was just a Philly thing, Berkman wasn’t sure. He’s “almost positive” it’s happening in other cities too, he said, but “I’ve seen so many through my friends it’s hard to say.”
However, there is a “CHOCOLATE” shouting event set up by a Berklee School of Music student for Boston’s Max Brenner on the same day as the one in Philadelphia, so the trend appears to be spreading via the college student network. (Hey, kind of like early Facebook itself.)
Before you head out with your phone at the ready to capture the hilarity that might ensue when a thousand people amass in front of a chain restaurant and scream nonsensical lines from a Nickelodeon cartoon, hold up.
According to Illkya Acosta, the UArts senior behind the Wendy’s happening, people signed up to attend the event don’t necessarily actually follow through.
“It’s just a fictional event really,” Acosta said. “It’s more for trolling.”
Berkman confirmed that, though he was wistful about it: “It’d be nice to do it, but I know it’s probably not going to happen.”
