Few things in life are more enjoyable than pulling a hilarious, harmless prank on a loved one. Especially when you know exactly which buttons to push, which always takes a prank to the next level.
That’s what happened when TikTok user Maddie Goetz decided to play a joke on her dad during a family trip to In-N-Out Burger in Los Angeles.
She and her family (and now basically the entire internet) discovered that one thing her dad does NOT joke around about, is his meat.
In the video, Goetz films her father trying an In-N-Out burger for the very first time. At first bite, he was in heaven. Between happily satisfied hums he gushed, “One of the best hamburgers I’ve ever had. The way the meat is cooked is like, it is so good.”
That was when Maddie decided to kick this fast food experience up a notch. With the camera rolling, she told him the burger wasn’t beef at all.
“I genuinely can not believe that this is all vegan,” she says. At first her father thinks she’s talking about the fries only and she replies, “No, the burger. Everything’s vegan. This is a vegan restaurant, Dad. We’re in LA.”
Incredulous, her dad asks, “The meat? What do you mean by that? Like, this is not MEAT MEAT?”
“It’s a vegan burger, Dad,” Maddie answers.
And this is where Maddie earns an Oscar nomination, in my opinion. Keeping a straight face, as the man who had just been savoring every bite of his meal spiraled into meltdown mode.
“I wanted a hamburger burger. Can we go? I don’t want to eat fake meat,” he fumed, pushing the burger away like a child rejecting broccoli. He stammered, “I didn’t know it was not meat-meat… I don’t want to eat a salad hamburger. It tastes like… baked beans or some—something.”
Meanwhile, Maddie could barely hold back her laughter as she continued to eat.
Her dad sulked, muttering, “Let’s go to McDonald’s. I don’t want to eat fake meat. I like hamburgers. I don’t like veggie burgers.”
The August 26th video quickly went viral and currently sits at 6.9 million views and over 9,000 comments on TikTok. Commenters couldn’t get enough of his exaggerated reaction.
@maddiegoetzzzzz I CANT STOP LAUGHING
♬ original sound – Maddie Goetz
“Him turning into a child immediately,” one user joked.
Another wrote, “Gaslighting him into his taste buds changing is cracking me up 🤣.”
Another user added, “Best burger I ever had” to hating it and panicking is like the perfect example of propaganda working 😂”
One person wrote, “Is there a technical term for this? All I could come up with is food prejudice.”
Some commenters were confused at first, thinking that her father actually WAS vegan and she had tricked him into eating REAL meat, which would have been not so funny.
One person wrote, “Now trick a vegan into thinking they are eating meat. 😃”
That video would have gone viral for a lot of other reasons, we can assure you of that.
Maddie’s video ends with her sticking to her guns and reminding her dad that he was raving about the burger just moments prior.
“You just said you liked it,” she says to him as she begins giggling.
Her dad responds, “Yea but not like THAT!”
Either way, the video is a reminder that sometimes food preferences are cultural, sometimes they’re generational, and sometimes they are just plain silly.
We just wish we could have seen her dad’s face when she broke it to him that McDonald’s meat isn’t the beef quality flex that he thinks it is.
