Claire Saffitz Showing Olive Oil Like an 'Animal Crossing' Character

Submission 1,176

Part of a series on Exploitables. [View Related Entries]

About

Claire Saffitz Showing Olive Oil Like an Animal Crossing Character refers to a series of memes, including redraws, based on a YouTube comment comparing a frame of chef Claire Saffitz holding a bottle of olive oil to the camera during a 2020 Bon Appétit video to the way an Animal Crossing character shows off a bug or fish that they've just caught. A screenshot of the frame and comment originally went viral in 2020 and gained viral spread over the following years, inspiring redraws and other exploitable memes referencing it.

Origin

On April 28th, 2020, the Bon Appétit YouTube^[1] channel uploaded a video titled "Pro Chefs Make 9 Kinds of Pantry Sandwiches," garnering over 3.4 million views in four years. At the 6-minute mark, chef Claire Saffitz adds some olive oil to her recipe. She shows the bottle of oil to the camera, leaning slightly over the table, extending the bottle forward with her left hand and her right arm extended out to her side (shown below).

On April 29th, 2020, Redditor u/Antiwhippy posted a Photoshop edit to the /r/bon_appetit^[2] subreddit placing a cutout of Claire holding the bottle of oil over an Animal Crossing background, writing, "Claire caught some olive oil! (Animal Crossing parody)," garnering over 150 upvotes in four years (shown below). This is the earliest known meme to make the comparison.

Spread

Shortly after the video was released, screenshots of the same frame of the video with comments comparing Claire to an Animal Crossing character began to spread online.

On May 2nd, 2020, a screenshot of the frame along with a comment left under the video reading, "she looks like an Animal Crossing character showing off what she obtained," was posted to the Meme Appetit Facebook^[3] page, garnering over 150 reactions in four years.

On May 6th, a screenshot of a similar comment was posted to /r/AnimalCrossing,^[4] garnering over 6,200 upvotes in four years (shown below, left). On May 11th, Redditor u/tucaas_ posted a redraw of the frame to /r/bon_appetit,^[5] depicting Claire in an Animal Crossing style, garnering over 1,300 upvotes in four years (shown below, right).

On June 5th, 2020, a now-deleted Redditor shared a redraw of the frame to /r/AnimalCrossing^[14] originally posted to X on an unknown date by kapebeans^[13] that garnered over 26,000 upvotes in four years (shown below, left).

On May 9th, 2021, Tumblr^[6] user animalcrossingmemes posted a version of the meme using a similar comment, garnering over 44,000 notes in three years (shown below, right).On August 5th, 2022, the meme was posted to /r/rareinsults,^[7] garnering over 4,200 upvotes in two years before it was removed by moderators.

On February 13th, 2024, X^[8] user @RespectfulMemes reposted the meme, garnering over 81,000 likes and 5,200 reposts in four months. On February 14th, X^[9] user @SirBiscuit45 reposted the KapeBeans redraw of Claire as an Animal Crossing character, garnering over 600 likes in the same span of time.

On June 12th, X^[10] user @charlubby reposted the meme, writing, "one of my fav comments of all time," garnering over 117,000 likes and 6,500 reposts in two days. The next day, X^[11] user @realonx1 reposted the KapeBeans redraw as a comment under the post, garnering over 3,500 likes in a day. That day, X^[12] user @charlubby posted a new redraw of the scene that gained over 171,000 likes and 17,000 reposts in a day (shown below).