We Need To Talk About Nutter Butter
People are freaking out about the brand’s unhinged TikTok videos.
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Nutter Butter cookies — those grid-marked, peanut-shaped, peanut-butter-filled sandwich-cookie classics that have been around since 1969 — seem wholesome enough as a snack. But all you have to do is nibble around the edges of the brand’s social media accounts to wonder whether something strange is going on.
Nutter Butter, it seems, is one kooky cookie brand. “America’s #1 peanut butter cookie. Spreading nuttiness since 1969,” its Facebook page boasts. And its incontrovertibly nutty approach to its social media accounts has brought those accounts viral attention.
On TikTok, for instance, the brand has racked up many millions of views with a series of strange and unsettling videos.
Its top pinned video, posted on July 18, includes, among other things, distorted voices, doorbell sounds, and the phrases “Floor Time,” “What’s wrong sweetheart?” “Can you hear me :)” “Air” as well as creepy clown faces, random cartoon hands and feet, and thumping dance music. It’s all combined into a strange cacophony and has been posted alongside a coy caption: “it is unknown.”
@officialnutterbutter it is unknown
♬ original sound - nutter butter
A video posted on May 21 is set against an echo-y vintage Nutter Butter jingle and features the cookie in a fiery playground. Its caption reads “come play.”
A cookie horror-show video posted on January 25 offers haunting music, eerie lighting and a carousel of cookies scattered silently in peanut-butter smeared rooms. “come on in,” invites the caption.
Other recurring images on Nutter Butter’s official Instagram, TikTok and Facebook pages include the Nutter Butter Man (whose “intentions are unknown” we are warned), heartfelt pleas for aid (for instance, “help me papa”), cats and the names Aidan and Nadia (which are anagrams of each other, incidentally).
What the heck is going on, Nutter Butter? While a slew of other partner brands have lightheartedly commented on Nutter Butter’s posts (an “LOL” from Subway here, an “I’ve been saying this,” from Bounty Paper Towels there), regular old everyday people are worried.
“nutter butter blink twice if you need help,” one commenter wrote.
“If you guys have not seen Nutter Butter’s official account on here. I need you to stop what you’re doing and go look at it. Because I had to and I think you should, too. I’m concerned,” said a TikToker named Cassie Fitzwater in a video that has itself gone viral. “Nutter Butter, are you guys OK? Are you doing all right? I might have nightmares. That’s weird. Are you OK?”
Many commenters responding to Fitzwater’s post shared her alarm:
“I went, and now I am concerned about both Nutterbutter and my FYP,” wrote one.
“do we call for a wellness check?” asked another.
“Why do I feel like I just watched the ring movie and I’m the next to die?” wondered a third.
A few were concerned about the “Aidan” mentioned in some of Nutter Butter’s posts, including the person who asked, “What if Aidan is trapped in the Nutter Butter factory and he’s trying to communicate with us?”
Nutter Butter itself responded to Fitzwater’s post with yet another creepy video. “Are we OK? Depend,” it wrote, before maniacally chanting, “Yes, yes, yes.”
@officialnutterbutter 10 21 24 @Cassie Fitzwater ♬ original sound - nutter butter
The cookie brand also issued a TikTok video responding to the controversy in general, leaning heavily into the Aidan and cats imagery.
So who is this Aidan? Apparently someone who frequently put his name in comments responding to Nutter Butter’s posts.
As for what’s going on with this super weird social media strategy, we asked Nutter Butter.
“Nutter Butter embraces its nuttiness, departing from a perfectly curated feed to experiment with the surreal side of the internet,” the brand tells Food Network. “Our social channels create a realm of extreme absurdity and deep lore by going where no other cookie has gone before. Follow us as we push the boundaries of creativity to take you on unexpected adventures.”
There you have it. Strange, but effective. We haven’t thought about Nutter Butter in years, but suddenly we’re craving them.
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