The 'muffins in the freezer' TikTok trend is Vine silliness revisited
Spend enough time on TikTok, and you might wonder why the hell everyone is asking, "Who the hell put the muffins the freezer?"
The answer to that question is both simple and a little complicated. The simple answer is that it's a silly trend on TikTok with that bit of audio and, typically speaking, a short video posting some kind of reveal. The complicated answer is that this all started back on Vine, the now-defunct, short-form video platform that predated TikTok.
But first, back in the present day, the trend has been all over TikTok lately. The trend typically involves somebody lip-syncing the audio, "Who the hell put the muffins in the freezer?" with someone else in the reveal saying, "I did." Oftentimes, the trend is purposefully cringeworthy since the audio is, well, pretty cringeworthy.
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Sometimes, there are even literal muffins in literal freezers.
It's become so popular that it's made its way to A-list celebs like Bella Hadid.
That's it... That's the whole trend. It's a throwback, really, to the Vine days. Vine's 6-second limit often pared down humor to somebody just saying something in a weird way. Remember "FR E SH A VOCA DO?" That's what's happening here: The sound is odd, and the videos are cringey, short, and easy to film.
It's not surprising, then, that this trend dates back to Vine and, more recently, the year 2020. As Distractify wrote five years ago, the TikTok account @beanstalk_0 uploaded what appears to be an old Vine of a kid shrieking, "What the fuck?" then asking, in that unmistakeable tone, "Who the hell put the muffins in the freezer?" That post went viral.
Then, musician Tiagz transformed it into a song, which also went viral.
This is something Tiagz was known for at the time, with Pitchfork dubbing him in 2020 a "cringey remixer" who was "the most hated producer on TikTok." So yes, you're reading that right, the 2025 trend is a retread from 2020. Frankly, I didn't even remember it because, well, 2020 was a weird year.
So we've spent all this time questioning who the hell put the muffins in the freezer, when really we should be asking how long they've been there.
Tim Marcin is an Associate Editor on the culture team at Mashable, where he mostly digs into the weird parts of the internet. You'll also see some coverage of memes, tech, sports, trends, and the occasional hot take. You can find him on Bluesky (sometimes), Instagram (infrequently), or eating Buffalo wings (as often as possible).
