Impossible Whopper Estrogen

Confirmed 70,156

Part of a series on Soy Boy. [View Related Entries]

About

Impossible Whopper Estrogen refers to an incorrect claim that the vegetarian Impossible Burger sold by Burger King fast-food chain contains 18 million times more estrogen than the regular Whopper. Published by Tri-State Livestock News on December 20th, 2019, the claim became a popular subject of memes in late December 2019. The memes explored the premise that the burger could stimulate breast growth and gender transition, similar to the Soy Boy memes.

Origin

On December 20th, 2019, Tri-State Livestock News^[1] posted an article written by veterinary doctor James Stangle in which he claimed that the vegetarian Impossible Whopper manufactured by Impossible Foods Inc. and distributed by Burger King contains 44 milligrams of estrogen, which is 18 million times more than 5 nanograms of estrogen in the regular Whopper. In The Washinton Post and in a number of other media,^[2]^[3]^[4] this information was later proven to be incorrect, with the Tri-State Livestock News article not clarifying that the estrogen found in the Impossible Whopper is phytoestrogen, which has no confirmed effect on testosterone concentrations in men.^[5]

On December 23rd, 2019, National File^[6] published an article based on the Tri-State Livestock News Report. On January 11th, The National File updated the article to clarify that the estrogen contained in the Impossible Whooper is phytoestrogen.

Spread

Starting on December 24th, the National File article was shared by users on 4chan,^[7] Twitter,^[8] 4chan,^[9] iFunny^[9] and other websites. For example, a December 24th, 2019 /fit/ thread about the report received 232 replies (shown below, top). A same-day joke by @sonyaism received over 4,000 retweets and 22,100 likes in one month (shown below, bottom left). A same-day post by iFunny user AmonBastion received over 3,900 smiles and 250 replies in the same period.

In the following days, memes suggesting that the Impossible Whopper could lead to the development of breasts and involuntary gender transition were posted online, primarily on iFunny and Twitter. For example, a December 24th, 2019, tweet^[10] by user @JOHNofWar received over 2,300 retweets and 9,800 likes in one month (shown below, left). A December 25th, /fit/^[11] Snapchat Gender Change Filter edit of ReviewBrah imagined the vlogger experiencing a gender transition after reviewing the burger (repost shown below, center). A January 1st, 2020, GIF caption meme by iFunny^[12] user That1BlackGuy received over 1,300 smiles in three weeks (shown below, right).