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Have you heard about #cake? Now, I completely understand if you are staring, open-mouthed at the audacity of this jumped-up twenty something, trying to 'youngsplain' what #cake is to you.
You might well be thinking something along the lines of: “Of course I know what cake is. What do you take me for? Someone without a mouth? Someone who’s never watched ‘Bake Off’?! How very dare you!!”
Before you start screaming at the screen – firstly, you look ridiculous, don’t do that any more – and secondly, just as with many things on the Internet, #cake is not all it seems.
In fact, illusion is the name of the game when it comes to #cake. Over the last year, after many months of cooped up indoors contemplating the end of the world, people seem to have gone through many epochs of lockdown.
There was the #TigerKing era of lockdown – focused on the utterly disturbing documentary following a number of animal park owners in the deep south of America (each more eccentric than the last). The self-anointed #TigerKing, Joe Exotic was locked in a fierce rivalry with another cat sanctuary owner, Carole Baskin, and the film followed their feud as well as the other characters in their lives. Spoiler alert: there are a lot more sex cults than you might expect.
Then we had the swoony hysteria over the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s latest novel #NormalPeople. Remember that? Yeah, it’s okay if it felt like it was approximately seven years ago – we all feel that way.
Now, we’ve arrived safely in the #cake dynasty. Following a video showing close-ups of apparently ordinary household objects (a shoe, a toilet roll, a bar of soap) before a knife comes into shot, cutting into aforementioned object and demonstrating that it is, in fact, #cake.
This is insane! I really thought it was an oyster! I’m seeing all this #cake shit all over social media. Quit making me so damn realistic! #crazycakes pic.twitter.com/bfODWc0ViL
— GuitaristGamer???????????? (@GAMERMUSIC74) July 13, 2020
As the video progresses, the objects (which aren’t objects, they’re cakes – remember?!) get increasingly bizarre – a pizza, a chopping board with burgers on – each iced more realistically than the last. This led many people, understandably, to start to question their own reality. How can I be sure that my laptop isn’t #cake as well? What about my cat? What about myself?
As most things do, this quickly spiralled out of control into a frenzy of memes, jokes and photoshopped stills from movies – all based on the premise that everything is cake.
And to be honest, if that’s true, it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened this year.
