Why Are TikTokers Scared of the Grimace Shake?

If you're wondering why you're hearing so much about Grimace (yes, the McDonald's character — did you know that he's supposed to be a tastebud?) this month, it's because June 12 was apparently his birthday (making him a Gemini, if you were wondering).

To commemorate the occasion, McDonald's released a Grimace Birthday Meal, which comes with either a 10-piece nuggets or a Big Mac, french fries, and a bright purple, blueberry-flavoured Grimace Birthday Shake.

Innocuous enough, right? But as so often happens these days, the internet saw an opportunity to turn a standard corporate promotion into something absurd and hilarious, and created the Grimace Shake meme.

It started slowly, with social media users joking about the effects of drinking the purple shake. "Drinking the Grimace shake binds you to his will," @jpbrammer tweeted.

Things escalated on TikTok, however. According to Know Your Meme, TikTok creator @thefrazmaz was the first to post the video that's now become a meme. In the clip, posted on June 13, he showed himself excitedly trying the Grimace Shake. Then, the video suddenly cuts to a shot of him lying lifelessly on the ground with purple milkshake around his mouth. "R.I.P Grimace (and me)" the caption reads.

@thefrazmaz

R.I.P Grimace (and me) #mcdonalds #grimace #milkshake #grimaceshake #birthday #fakedeath #yummy

♬ original sound - ‍r7ptor

Soon enough, other creators were replicating the video — and while the results were sometimes dark, they were also often hilarious.

At first, McDonald's seemed to ignore the memes. But on June 27, the company — or, rather, Grimace himself — officially tweeted a response: "meee pretending i don't see the grimace shake trendd," the tweet reads, above an image of a wide-eyed Grimace. He spent some time replying to comments in the thread, too.

It's safe to say McDonald's isn't too salty about the trend, considering plenty of people are probably snatching up Grimace Birthday Meals to recreate the meme — or just test their courage. So far, no one who's been a victim of the Grimace Shake has had anything bad to say about the flavour.