Posted on 22nd March 2023
There's a lot of love for Pedro Pascal on TikTok, with more than six billion views of the hashtag #PedroPascal and the Chilean-American actor featuring in a number of big memes and trends in 2023.
A meme of him and Nicolas Cage in a scene from The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent has been used by more than 500,000 people – and now a new trend using a cutout of him eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich is taking off.
The video, which has already been used in more than 300,000 videos, is taken from an episode of LADbible's Snack Wars, which premiered on March 1. In the episode he was comparing American and Chilean food and drinks with Jon Favreau, writer of The Mandalorian television series in which Pascal stars as Din Djarin.
People are using the cutout of Pascal to joke about scenarios where they're sitting alone, doing something mindlessly and appearing to be lost in their own world, sometimes while waiting for something to happen or somebody to turn up. Videos are usually soundtracked with the intro of New Home by Austin Farwell, a slow and sombre piano instrumental track that on TikTok has been dubbed the "mouse eating sound". The original sound of Pascal biting into the sandwich has been replaced with the sound of someone biting something crunchy.
At first people were using a greenscreen edit to superimpose the cutout of Pascal eating his sandwich onto different backgrounds. One of the early big videos, posted on March 7, was from the online ticket platform GetByBus from the point of view of an office worker "when everyone in work is drowning in tasks but I still have 5 minutes before my break is over" (1 million views):
Since then a simple CapCut template has been created by Pedro Pascal fan @rosierevolts, where all users have to do is select a photo from their phone's cameraroll for the background and add a caption. This has helped the trend become more established and mainstream – in a few days there have already been more than 300,000 uses of the template.
This example from @heystraights is one of the biggest videos using the CapCut template with 6 million views and 1.5 million likes – "Me sitting alone in my bedroom after a large group gathering thinking about all the social cues I missed and what I should have said in conversations instead".
Some of the other big videos have included @my.dog.eve waiting for their dog to go to the toilet before they leave for work; @bellyjellyfactoryy joking about "dissociating in my bed" after "ghosting", a smoking trick where you blow smoke out into a cloud then suck it back in really fast; @kellyintherealworld being "unbothered" after not doing well in an exam; and @am0mda "calming myself down with a sweet treat".
There are a few memes from Taylor Swift fans who didn't manage to get tickets to the opening night of her long-awaited Eras tour in Arizona and had to sit alone watching footage online instead, like @chloaymay.
Brands are starting to jump on the trend, like Vimto imagining someone eating a Vimto Jam sandwich at 1am when they're unable to get to sleep; footwear and apparel brand Footlocker in a meme about "me in the stock room enjoying a snacky snack while I "go grab your size""; and Ryanair joking about a guy "enjoying my food without sharing because my GF was randomly allocated to the other side of the plane".
A couple of celebrities have got involved too including Jonas Brothers singer Joe Jonas in a video about watching his brother Nick singing solo; and TV host Padma Lakshmi in a video about winding down with a sandwich after filming an episode of Top Chef.
Spotting TikTok trends
The Pedro Pascal sandwich meme is just one of the new trends quickly picked up and tracked by our Buzz service, which highlights some of the big talking points emerging on TikTok and social media every day.
Buzz from Shooglebox is used by journalists, creators and brand teams who need to spot and stay on top of the latest trends.
It includes a constantly updated box of cards showing at a glance and linking to viral videos, TikTok trends and other things going big on social media. Buzz customers also get regular updates alerting them to some of the things they might otherwise miss or discover late.
This stack of cards for the Pedro Pascal eating a sandwich trend gives you an idea of how Shooglebox works – and how it could help you go from spotting a trend right at the start to tracking its development over time.
If you're interested in signing up or finding out more about Buzz get in touch here.
