From the Grimace Shake to the Barbie Shake, it's clearly the summer of ice cream-related TikTok trends. Buckle up for the latest one: the ice cream challenge, or ice cream throw challenge.
In these short and hilarious clips, ice cream shop employees spice up their customer interactions by taking their dedication to the freezing point. When a (fake) customer tells the employee their order was made wrong (usually that they wanted chocolate instead of vanilla), the employee apologizes politely, grabs the ice cream straight out of the cone with their bare hand, and hurls it at their coworker‘s head. Splat.
At Mr. G's Ice Cream and Grill in South Carolina, the employee lobs the soft serve at her coworker while she attempts to mop the floor.
"IT BOUNCED OFF 😭😭," one person commented.
"The 'ohohhhh!' At the end had me 😂😂😂," another person wrote.
An employee hit in the face at Illinois’ Route 66 Creamery falls backwards from the force as the video cuts off with prime comedic timing.
“THE WAY THEY BOTH FLEW BACK AT THE SAME TIME 😭😭,” one person commented on the video, which has over 23 million views.
In yet another version of the trend from Main Street Creamery in Washington, Missouri, the “customer” says they asked for no whipped cream on their ice cream, and the whipped cream smears all over the employee’s face when they get hit with it. He staggers around, blinded up by whip and flashes a thumbs-up at the camera.
Plenty of other ice cream shops around the country have participated in the messy trend: Mickey's in Willoughby, Ohio, whose throw seemed to catch the victim completely offguard; The Fountain on Locust in St. Louis, Missouri, whose video involved a pair of goggles; and Massachusett's scoop shop Cherry Hill Ice Cream's version went mega-viral, with nearly 37 million views.
This ice cream trend appears to be a spinoff of the popular “intrusive thoughts” trend from earlier this year in which service industry employees would film skits of themselves receiving a complaint about an order — coffee, food, etc. — and addressing it in the most direct and unhinged way. If a customer says their coffee was supposed to have no ice, the employee reaches their hand into the cup and pulls the ice out.
In a viral TikTok by @aidan.somanah, the customer asks if their coffee has caramel in it and the employee grabs the cup, drinks from it and nods “yes.” He also sweeps the chocolate powder straight off of the top of the cup.
Talk about customer service!