How Kendrick’s “Mustard” Scream Became Horror

Know Your Meme

Kendrick Lamar’s explosive “Mustard” scream from his track TV Off started as a viral moment on TikTok and Twitter, but in June 2025, it took a darkly creative turn into the world of analog horror edits. It began with creators splicing Kendrick’s wide-eyed, mirrored Chanel ad face into unsettling recipe videos and old movie clips, using the iconic scream as a chaotic jump scare. It evolved into a subtrend of disturbing mustard-themed horror content. The trend captures how a single shout can transform from a viral joke into a surreal, internet-native horror aesthetic, turning Kendrick’s “Mustard” yell into one of the strangest meme evolutions of 2025.  Check out our new MEME STORE: https://thememestore.com/  Subscribe to our channel to learn more about trending memes, hear interviews from meme personalities and more! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbrPqq29C9Q_TQP7OFFRzcw?sub_confirmation=1  #meme #memes #memesvideos

Transcript

00:00How did Kendrick Lamar yelling Mustard evolve into this analog horror meme?

00:07Unless you've been living under a rock this year, you've probably heard Kendrick's track TV Off,

00:11in which, at one point, he screams producer DJ Mustard's name as if he's trying to make the

00:16deli counter guy go deaf. You've definitely heard it. He even performed it at the Super Bowl.

00:30On November 22nd, 2024, Kendrick Lamar released his album GNX, the seventh track of which is TV Off.

00:38Almost immediately, users zeroed in on the screaming of the word Mustard and started posting jokes and

00:43memes about it online. A lot of these memes on Twitter involved captioning an image of a character

00:48screaming with the word Mustard in all caps. And on TikTok, creators would set up situations where

00:52it would be appropriate, or at least appropriately funny, to scream the name of the condiment.

00:56But when exactly did it turn toward the creepy? The earliest known example of the Mustard analog

01:08horror meme seems to have been posted on June 5th, 2025, by TikToker The Amalgamator. The video is

01:14an edit of an ASMR influencer's recipe video using mustard seeds that creepily flashes Kendrick's

01:19wide-eyed face throughout before ultimately ending by cutting to the distorted image and the mustard

01:24scream from the track.

01:25Mustard seeds. Mustard. Mustard. Mustard. Mustard. Mustard. Mustard. Mustard. Mustard.

01:31The same user would post a similar video shortly after, this time playing a clip from the movie

01:36The Founder, in which Nick Offerman's character also screams,

01:39Pickles and pickle and mustard!

01:44The clip zooms out to show it's being played on a TV set, which is then turned off. Get it? TV off.

01:49And then we see, whatever this is.

01:52Mustard.

01:56A bunch of other creepy stuff happens, like a bunch more eyes appearing, and a voice saying,

02:05I see dead people. But of course, the video inevitably ends like this.

02:09Oddly enough, the particular image of Kendrick used in the meme was taken from an ad campaign

02:18he did for Chanel. But the original ad only shows half his face, meaning the full image depicted is

02:22an edit in which half of his face has been mirrored and pieced together. I guess making it so symmetrical

02:27it's creepy. The trend would go viral throughout June, as more creators slipped distorted versions

02:32of Kendrick's face into creepy analog horror edits, usually made using OC that references mustard

02:38in some way. For example, on June 15th, TikToker Viet Munkasoft posted one of these edits using a

02:43clip of influencer iRickSnacks making a burger with mustard. The edit garnered over a million views

02:48in just over a week.

02:49If you put mustard on a burger, mustard, mustard, mustard, mustard, mustard, mustard, mustard,

02:54or can't you?

02:56The references to mustard in the edits would even get more and more subtle, like this viral iteration,

03:01which collects the letters of the word at the bottom of the screen before cutting to the horror

03:04element. So what does it all mean? Has the mustard screen

03:07conjured some condiment demon that's taken Kendrick's form and plans to come for everyone

03:11who consumes it? Who knows? But just in case, I'll stick to ketchup.

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