If you were on death row, what would your last meal look like?
TikTok’s latest bizarre trend has users asking themselves that question and uploading videos that disclose what they would choose to eat if they found themselves in the less-than-ideal situation.
“Diet Coke… chicken pad Thai, saltines, [and] DŌ chocolate chip cookie dough,” made up user @chai.lattes.4ever “oddly specific” list.
For another user called @babeinthewoodz, sushi, garden salsa Sun Chips, a blue raspberry lemonade from Sonic and a bowl of Orbeez chalked up another odd request.
A third user named @drakeerussell said Chick-Fil-A’s chicken nuggets, Arnold Palmer half iced tea/half lemonade, caesar salad with chicken, Dots pretzels, Nerds and more comprised the list.
Dr. Pepper, Philly cheesesteak, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Chick-Fil-A, Takis, sushi and other popular foods earned spots on several people’s lists.
Despite its popularity on the controversial video-sharing platform, not everyone is on board with the #deathrowmeal trend.
Tricia Crimmins, a staff writer with the Daily Dot, criticized the trend as being “in poor taste.”
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“TikTokers are documenting what they’d want to be their last meals as well—but, of course, they aren’t on death row. Thus many have found the trend to be insensitive and tone-deaf,” she wrote.
Crimmins criticized some users for saying “goodbye” at the end of their videos and making a more obvious allusion to death, but the majority of criticism in the post stemmed from users’ alleged lack of racial consciousness.
TikToker @ngozimusa is quoted in the piece as criticizing the trend for racial insensitivity, saying she will abstain from participating because “there is a direct correlation between race and capital punishment in the United States.”
“I’m not trying to be controversial, but I will personally not be participating in this trend,” she said in a Jan. 8 video on her TikTok account.
“People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 43 percent of executions since 1976, and the large majority of people doing this trend are not people of color,” she added.
She also bashed the allegedly insensitive trend further, saying that people of color are “seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder in the United States.”
Crimmins, circling back to her own take on the issue, finished the criticism by writing, “Unfortunately, content surrounding capital punishment does well on TikTok: videos about the “strangest” death row meal requests and TikTokers eating serial killer’s final meals have approximately a million likes. So, it’s unlikely the trend will go out of style any time soon.”
