Five Lobster Bisques

Submission 3,500

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About

Five Lobster Bisques, also written 5 Lobster Bisques, refers to a viral video of employees at a Zoup! restaurant who sing a parody rendition of the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" in which they replace the words with food items from their cajun seafood restaurant. One woman boisterously sings, "Five lobster bisques," followed by less enthusiastic and less musically inclined employees who sing, "Four spicy crab," and, "Three curry thai," among other lyrics. The video was originally posted to TikTok in 2020 and trended going into 2022 as a cringe video and lip dub meme.

Origin

On December 19th, 2020, TikToker^[1] itsanewdia posted a video of employees at a Delaware location of Zoup! Eatery singing a rendition of the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas," starting on the sixth day. The second person in the video is a woman who sings "five lobster bisques" with a lot of passion. Over the course of two years, the TikTok received roughly 7 million plays and 1.4 million likes (shown below).

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, six broccoli cheddar,
Five lobster bisques,
Four spicy crab,
Three curry thai,
Two pepper steak,
And an extra large white chicken chili.

Spread

In the days that followed the original video's upload, many TikTokers made videos that used the sound and reacted to the various employees and their lyrics. For instance, on December 20th, 2020, TikToker^[2] thatsjustchris posted a video in which he lip-dubbed and impersonated each employee, gaining roughly 305,400 plays and 58,900 likes in two years (shown below, left). Also on December 20th, 2020, TikToker^[3] bee_schmitty posted a video in which he ranked each lyric, gaining roughly 718,400 plays and 136,000 likes in two years (shown below, right).

On December 23rd, 2020, TikToker^[4] gabbyferraraaa posted a duet in which they guessed what phone cases each employee had, earning roughly 558,500 plays and 104,100 likes in one year (shown below, left). The concept gained traction as other TikTokers posted similar videos, like one uploaded by TikToker^[5] testedpanda1234 on December 27th, 2020, in which they guessed what shoes each employee was wearing, earning roughly 2.6 million plays and 514,200 likes in two years (shown below, right).

2022 Resurgence

On November 20th, 2022, TikToker^[6] famousonikaa reposted a cropped version of the original video with text overlay reading, "It's that time of year again🎄," gaining roughly 6 million plays and 1.5 million likes in 24 days (shown below, left). TikTokers began using the sound of her video to post lip-dubs, many of whom also used a variety of filters to represent each singing employee. For instance, on November 28th, 2022, TikToker^[7] rulaempire posted a video of this nature, earning roughly 4 million plays and 975,700 likes in 16 days (shown below, right).