15 Popular Social Media Food Trends That Eventually Fizzled Out

In the age of TikTok, food trends come and go in no time at all. Whether it's the latest viral pasta dish or a secret Starbucks drink, there seems to be a new food trend on social media every single day. It says a lot about the power of the internet to make something catch on, but it also says quite a lot about the unifying power of food. Technology has made it so that more and more people can latch onto an interesting recipe or a unique cooking hack, and ultimately, the goal is to turn it into an internet craze.

Remember when everyone was obsessed with croissant doughnuts (cronuts, of course)? That's certainly an example of a trend that reached peak popularity but ultimately became normalized enough that people still eat them even years later. How about the croffle, though? Or perhaps the crookie? Those didn't quite have the staying power of the cronut, but it's not their fault. Truthfully, it's not often that a social media food trend actually sticks long term; many tend to fizzle out almost as quickly as they appear. That's why we're taking a look back at some short-lived viral food moments, compiling 15 of the most popular trends in recent years that ultimately faded into obscurity.

Pickles are certainly an acquired taste. These days, there are so many different brands of store-bought pickles, that there might actually be a pickle out there for everyone. But if there was one thing to really put a damper on the pickle legacy, it'd be glitter pickles.

The name says it all, really. Glitter pickles were, indeed, a thing for a minute. As if pickles weren't already extremely divisive, someone decided it'd be a good idea to add edible glitter to their jars and try to make it an internet craze. It worked, apparently! People caught on and started making their pickles look sparkly. It worked well for a time, and the end of 2024 was perhaps a bit brighter for the introduction of these pretty pickles. Some on social media, though, found the trend to be taking things a bit too far for the sake of aesthetics, and others ultimately didn't see the point of them. There was obviously no difference in taste or texture, just the bright and shiny presentation. And with that, the glitter pickles ceased to twinkle any longer.

Who doesn't remember whipped coffee? This 2020 trend really took the internet by storm, despite it actually being a coffee drink that has been around for a long time. Whipped coffee is more technically known as Greek dalgona coffee, and it's literally made by combining water, sugar, and instant coffee into a foam. This was one of the most popular food trends of that year, with people trying it at home while stuck inside during the COVID-19 pandemic. It actually started picking up steam thanks to a YouTube video of a Korean actor trying the drink, and quickly word got around about the little-known beverage.

Some coffee devotees derided it on social media for being too strong, too sweet, or having an off texture, but some people liked it. As a popular trend, it mostly faded out the same year it arrived. So it's resurgence a few years back didn't do much to boost the drink's popularity: it was a thing before, and it's still a thing, but you don't see as many people making whipped coffee these days as you did in 2020.

There are many, many different kinds of bread out there, but most kinds are made with the same simple ingredients. People can't get enough of it all over the world. It's so good, you almost can't mess it up. Or can you?

Do you remember cloud bread? This 2020 viral moment was almost too simple to be good. All you needed was sugar, egg whites, and cornstarch, and you supposedly had yourself a delicious and fairly nutritious (as it was gluten-free and protein-packed) take on everyone's favorite carb. In reality, however, the trend didn't really land. People complained on Reddit that cloud bread tasted like "a wet marshmallow had a baby with a Corn Pops cereal bag." Others said that, rather than a satisfying bread, people said it tasted like a meringue, which would be fine if bread was supposed to taste anything like an airy dessert (it's obviously not). All in all, cloud bread was meant to be a healthy alternative, but ultimately seemed to fall flat.

Charcuterie boards are party classics. There really is nothing quite like a cheese board if you've got a nice balance of cheese. It's an art, after all. But if you get it right, there's nothing like a great charcuterie to change the game at your next gathering. Something you may want to try and avoid, though, is a butter board.

This 2022 viral trend was exactly what it sounds like: You spread butter on a cutting board, spruce it up with some herbs, spices, and toppings, and dip bread or crackers in it directly. In theory, it sounds fairly harmless. But the reality is that it's both extremely messy and also not very practical. Some on Reddit even went so far as to call it "atrocious" for its messiness, and potentially wasteful because of how much butter it used. At best, it was an untidy messy fad that might look good in a photo, but served no real purpose otherwise. It seemed to fade out pretty soon after its moment in the spotlight.

There are some things in life that are simply too precious to be messed with, like pasta. Genuinely, there is nothing like a good Italian meal. Whether it's a classic spaghetti and meatballs or a spicy bolognese sauce with rigatoni noodles, pasta is a comfort food like no other. Pasta chips, however, did not bring people together the way the classic boiled noodle typically does. 

This short-lived trend rose to prominence in 2021, after the process of cooking and then air frying pasta went viral. It all started with a TikTok clip from a user who tossed farfalle in her air fryer with herbs and spices. In theory, the idea is to season your double-cooked pasta and dip it in marinara sauce or other dips, but most people seemed to be in agreement about the fact that the fried pasta just didn't seem to translate all that well from the idea phase to reality. The results tended to be dry and too crunchy, but not crunchy in the way a chip should be. In the end, pasta chips seemed to fade into social media trend obscurity where they seemingly belong.

Who could forget rainbow and unicorn foods? This colorful trend took the world by storm several years ago, and it's honestly fairly harmless. In most cases, it's all about adding some food coloring to your food and giving it some aesthetic flair. Take rainbow grilled cheese, for example. This can be a fun artistic thing to try at home if you've got some food dye and the right kind of cheese to make it happen. If you do it right, you'll get some really great photos out of the experience. It's a fun way to make an already tasty grilled cheese into something cool and fun, especially if you have kids.

There is such a thing as overkill, though, and the unicorn/rainbow trend really did reach its height about eight or nine years ago. Who could forget the Unicorn Frappuccino from Starbucks? It was a colorful Frappuccino that really ended there. It wasn't the best-tasting drink, and Starbucks employees seemed to have some trauma associated with the complicated and messy process of making it, in hindsight. We'd be remiss if we didn't also mention the iconic rainbow bagel, which is still something people make today, but definitely peaked, along with its colorful food counterparts, around 2017. Like all trends, too much of something leads to overexposure, which is exactly what happened with the unicorn and rainbow food trend.

In the history book of sauces, pink sauce will be remembered as a cautionary tale more than anything. If you aren't familiar with the pink sauce phenomenon and its ultimate downfall, let's be clear: We're not talking about a pink-ish vodka sauce. What we're dealing with here is a classic social media trend gone wrong.

It all started with a chef who went viral online in 2022 for creating a sauce that genuinely looked bright pink and became equally as famous for the mystery around its flavor. When the chef tried to capitalize on the growing exposure for her sauce, things started getting out of hand. Bottles weren't consistent in terms of color, and people noticed, and then concern began to grow around the safety of the sauce when consumers noted milk as an ingredient, despite sauces not being refrigerated when shipped. This, coupled with continued questions about the ingredients and taste of the sauce itself, created a bit of a firestorm for its creator and prompted a response on social media. Ultimately, pink sauce was fine-tuned and even made available in stores, but by then the hype had died down, and people moved on.

Coca-Cola: A soft drink rivaled by none. The crispness, the perfect balance of sweetness and subtle flavor; to drink a Coke is to indulge in something so classic and so American that it can be an experience in itself. These days, there are so many flavors to choose from that there's seriously something for everybody. So, what happens when you try to make that in a health-conscious way? You get the viral Healthy Coke beverage. On the surface, it sounds okay. But when you dig in, it certainly starts to seem less appetizing. 

Healthy Coke has two ingredients: Balsamic vinegar and sparkling water. If that sounds gross to you, that's because it is. When it went viral, it was pitched as being just as good as the real thing. In reality, though, people quickly realized that it did not taste good at all. Some social media users said they felt duped into drinking something disgusting, while others said that, at best, it tasted refreshing enough, but you couldn't mistake the taste of vinegar. At the end of the day, its rise to prominence in 2022 was very short-lived once people caught wind of just how un-Coke-like it actually was.

Here's a trend that's both harmless and delicious, if you're already a lover of pancakes. Mini Pancake Cereal is exactly what it sounds like: Making tiny pancakes, presenting them in a bowl, and eating them like cereal. This trend, which rose to prominence in mid-2020, made eating pancakes a whole new experience for TikTok foodies. Some used butter and syrup on top, while others legitimately added milk to their bowl of teeny pancakes.

The end result was always up for interpretation depending on the consumer's preferences, but the trend itself was in many ways peak pandemic: Slightly labor-intensive, low-risk, and not super high-reward as far as food trends go. Ultimately, people said they just tasted like pancakes, and it maybe wasn't worth the time and effort. The most interesting outcomes from this trend were the many spinoffs it spawned, from sushi cereal to croissant cereal. Tiny food cereal seemed to have its moment in 2020, and while it might not be fully worth the effort, it did make for something interesting and creative.

Speaking of interesting and creative, 2020 was a time when at-home creativity seemed to be at a tipping point for many people. Especially when it comes to food, it seems like people were trying anything and everything with the sheer amount of time they had on their hands. It makes sense, then, that hot cocoa would enter the conversation at some point as well, and it did in a really interesting way.

Hot cocoa is one of the best winter treats money can buy, but what happens when you put its ingredients inside a hard chocolate ball? You get hot cocoa bombs. These little balls of fun were meant to be dropped into hot milk and transformed into the delicious beverages we know and love. Inside hardened chocolate spheres is a cocoa mix and mini marshmallows, and those ingredients melt and combine with the milk. The trend became so popular that the original creator started selling packaged cocoa bombs in late 2020 and people gobbled them up for the holidays. Not far into the next year, however, the novelty seemed to wear off, and these treats didn't ultimately stand the test of time.

A fried egg is a culinary experience unlike anything else. When you get it right, there's almost no rival. Flavorful, runny, and perfect in so many dishes that go beyond breakfast. Have you ever had a fried egg in some ramen or a rice dish? Try it on a sandwich as well for an incredible lunch. Whatever the application, a good fried egg done right can be a game-changer.

In 2022, fried eggs got even more interesting for a minute when curious social media foodies started frying theirs in pesto. It's truly as simple as that — rather than using butter or oil, put some pesto in a pan and allow it to heat up. From there, simply cook an egg in it like you would any other fried egg. The result is super flavorful and unique, and people really took a liking to it for a bit as a tasty alternative to the standard fried egg. The trend seemingly had its day, but that doesn't mean it's still not worth a try next time you want to fry up an egg!

This one's pretty bizarre as far as social media food trends go. Another that is meant to be more of an aesthetic trend than anything else, the whole thing started with people paying more attention to activated charcoal and its health benefits. Activated charcoal is, in fact, an ingredient meant to absorb toxins and poisonous materials from the digestive tract.

What came from that, ultimately, was an obsession with making food look burnt and using activated charcoal to give things a dark aesthetic. Everything from ice cream to croissants can be spruced up with some activated charcoal, which people did for a minute in 2017 before the novelty wore off. Thankfully, there's no real difference in taste, so people who tried a charcoal croissant really just did it for the look of it.

Japanese desserts are some of the most delicious out there. If you've only ever tried mochi, you're missing out. Many are often fruit-centric, like the irresistibly sweet daifuku or the uniquely flavorful yokan. For those who want to branch out in the dessert world, Japanese desserts are a great place to start.

Perhaps one of the more interesting Japanese desserts, which started a massive trend in 2016, is the appropriately-named Raindrop Cake. This "cake," made with just water and agar, is largely flavorless. So you really get no benefit from it in terms of taste, but it's pretty amazing to look at. You have to make sure you try it quickly, however, because if you don't eat it immediately, it will evaporate in about 20 minutes. The viralness of it is apparent, but as a trend, it didn't last very long because it really is mostly about the aesthetic.

And just like that, we're back to cloud food! Cloud eggs are so aesthetically pleasing that they look like they could literally melt in your mouth. Simply, these eggs are made from whipped egg whites with a yolk put at the center. It's an extraordinarily simple way to make eggs, and they look really cool to boot. It's no wonder that they took the internet by storm for a short moment in time, just like other cloud foods that went viral.

These flashy eggs were trendy for a bit around 2017, with everyone wanting to try them and mostly take pictures of them. But as some noted on social media, it's essentially meringue without the sugar, which doesn't necessarily taste great. If you season it well, it can be an interesting breakfast, but ultimately, people didn't feel that cloud eggs were anything spectacular in the taste department.

Sushi is a culinary classic unlike any other, and fanatics really, truly, love the stuff. Connoisseurs know that some of the most well-known sushi rolls in the United States aren't even some of the best out there, so there's a whole world of sushi out there to dive into if you're not familiar with some of the great variations and creative spins on this delicious Japanese staple. Try a Tekka Maki or a Futomaki next time you want some truly excellent sushi.

One thing that might be worth avoiding if you're a sushi lover, though, is the mega viral sushi donut that took Instagram by storm in 2016 and 2017. These rolls, while extremely creative, didn't accomplish much else in the world of sushi aside from a new way to use a donut mold. People seemingly had a lot of fun using donut pans to make sushi creations in, and to their credit, they really did look amazing.

There's truly no difference in terms of flavor or anything that's consequential to the evolution of the dish, but sushi donuts really do look incredible in photos. If you find yourself wanting to recreate this trend today, make sure you use sushi rice that's moldable and maybe don't try too hard to hold it all together while you eat it. But most importantly, take some great photos first to remember your unique and beautiful donut roll.