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For some time now, social networks and influencers have been raising awareness about health care, both physical and mental. And on the different platforms, you can find various ways to achieve a healthy lifestyle, from exercise to meditation or recipes.
The latter is the case of Kara, a TikTok user whose profile is @Vibinggranolamom. She wanted to make a bean soup recipe for the “anemic girls“, according to what she wrote in her post. The recipe had as its main ingredient, as she says in her name, beans, or as she explains in her video, a “mixture” of different types of beans. She then goes on to add the rest of the ingredients.
What seemed like a simple and harmless recipe began to become a viral video. Currently, it has more than 8 million views, 800 thousand likes, and more than 12 thousand comments. And it is precisely the conversation that occurred in those comments that unleashed the controversy and the viralization of the video.
“Can I exchange the beans for something else?”
Hundreds of comments began to circulate on the original video asking if there was any alternative so that those who didn’t like beans could make that soup with another ingredient: “Can I change the beans for something else?”, asked a user in the comments of the video.
With resignation, Kara first responded by stating that there was not really a substitute for that type of food for that soup, but she encouraged other recipes: “There are many other foods out there with a lot of iron”. However, moments later the avalanche of messages arrived.
The answer to the haters
People began to comment en masse and ironically on Kara’s publication, asking what to do to complete the recipe if they did not like beans, in a recipe in which beans were the main ingredient and which gave its name to the dish itself.
The TikToker’s reaction to these haters was immediate and she responded ironically, offering an alternative for those who did not want to use beans. A “free” ingredient and has “a lot of iron“. She then took out a menstrual cup and sarcastically encouraged him to use it to replace it with beans.
Later, other influencers reacted to this type of question that the post received. In relation to these responses, the popular tiktoker @SarahTheBookFairy, with more than 70 thousand followers and almost 9 million likes, presented her theory about this type of attitude.
It’s what he calls “what about me? effect”. «It is something that he says happens in an “individualistic” society, at a time when “we seek validation in everything” and that is “chronically” on social networks like TikTok. It’s when someone sees “something that’s not about them“, yet “they find a way to turn it into something that’s about them.” He adds that if, in the case of soup, there is someone who doesn’t like beans, “maybe they shouldn’t be watching this bean soup video.” And he adds that “not everything is for everyone, and it’s ok.”