Ketchup Covering Food Debate

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About

The Ketchup Covering Food Debate refers to online conversation about where people prefer to place condiment ketchup in relation to their food: on top of food or on the side.

Origin

On August 2t8th, 2019, Twitter ^[1] user @TheVampsCon tweeted a photograph of ketchup-covered chicken nuggets. They wrote, "never trust someone that covers their food in ketchup." The post received more than 14,000 likes and 3,200 retweets in 24 hours (shown below).

Precursor

While the debate has likely existed before the internet, one of the earliest conversations about ketchup placement occured on May 5th, 2008 by HBCU^[2] message board user "NOISE TALKA." That day, they asked, "Does The Way You Eat Ketchup Say Something About Who You Are???" In their question, they provided examples of what they presume ketchup placement means as a personality trait (shown below).

Spread

Following the post, people began sharing their opinions on where to place ketchup in relation to their food, with some preferring covering, on the side or no ketchup at all (examples below).

That day, Twitter^[3] published a Moments page on the debate. Additionally, several media outlets covered the debate, including Complex,^[4] Thrillist,^[5] BBC^[6] and more.