Zoe Barrie's Cooking Advice / Seasoning Police

About

Zoe Barrie's Cooking Advice is a viral video of food influencer and TikToker @zoebarrie providing her opinion on seasoning, explaining that seasoning can be replaced with and is inferior to fresh ingredients. The video went viral on TikTok and Twitter in March 2023, with users discussing possible racial undertones in Barrie's critique, while the phrase "Seasoning Police," with which she referred to those who use a lot of seasoning, got adopted as a slang euphemism for Black people among some.

Origin

On March 15th, 2023, food influencer Zoe Barrie (@zoebarrie) posted a video response to a comment telling her "please season your chicken" on TikTok.^[1] In the video, which she addressed to the "seasoning police," Barrie explained that seasoning can be replaced with and is inferior to using fresh ingredients, such as sauteed onions and garlic. The video received over 1.2 million views and 144,000 likes on TikTok in six days (shown below).

This is a PSA to the seasoning police on this app.

Spread

On March 16th, 2023, Twitter^[2][3] users @bonethirty and @JustinTarnation both posted the video to Twitter, with the uploads gaining over 2.2 million views and 2.7 million views in five days.

The videos were followed by viral replies and quote tweets claiming that Zoe Barrie used the phrase "seasoning police" specifically as a condescending euphemism for Black people. For example, on March 17th, 2023, Twitter^[4] user @albademiks commented, "This women in one TikTok has done more for the dissident right than any radfem/trad poster on here." The tweet gained over 150 retweets and 2,700 likes in four days (shown below, left). On March 18th, Twitter^[5] user @ModeMonadic commented, "the way she said "seasoning police" was more powerfully racist than any slur I've heard," with the tweet gaining over 400 likes in three days (shown below, right).

The viral spread of the video was followed by users on Twitter using the phrase "seasoning police" to refer to Black people, while images and cutouts of Zoe Barrie have been used as reactions in a way similar to JetBlue Racist Burger King and Scott Adams Cutouts,, such as being superimposed over news snippets covering crimes (examples^[6][7][8] shown below).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References