TikTok users are sending Mr. Peanut sexual puns about nuts after the brand asked for jingle ideas
- The official TikTok account for the Planters nut brand asked viewers for theme song ideas.
- In an October video, the brand asked users to "write our jingle" using the app's duet feature.
On October 22, the Planters TikTok account asked viewers to write a new jingle for the brand in honor of "National Nut Day." In the weeks since the video was posted, the request has unfurled into chaos: users are skipping earnest lyrics to go straight for sexual puns on the word "nut."
The official TikTok page for the Planters nut brand, labeled as @mrpeanutoriginal in honor of its mascot, has approximately 277,000 followers. It typically posts animated advertisements, entries into sweepstakes contests that the brand is running, and videos tied to Mr. Peanut-adjacent characters like Baby Nut.
For its latest audience engagement effort, the brand asked creators to use TikTok's "duet" feature to sing along to a piano-based beat. The original video associated with the campaign has approximately 64,500 likes and 1.2 million views.
Now, approximately 3,800 TikTok users seem to have answered the call, based on the number of videos associated with the original sound.
While the jingles that the Planters account has reposted on its official TikTok have featured mostly wholesome puns on the words "nuts" or "nut," the most viral responses to the brand's call have been more sexual in nature. Some of the videos feature lyrics like "peanut butter in my butt," "Mr. Peanut put them nuts in my mouth," and "I might put these nuts in my butt crack."
The top posts have amassed millions of views.
"As it so happens, I'm a fan of pudding...." TikTok user Ella Watkins (@ella.whatkins) raps over the Mr. Peanut beat, the words written in an on-screen caption. "PUDDIN DEEZ NUTZ in your mouth good lookin."
The video, which was uploaded on Friday, has been viewed over 4.8 million times and has approximately 1 million likes.
"Like if u think mr peanut should hire me," Watkins wrote in a comment that has 30,200 likes.
This response follows previous meme patterns on TikTok, where earnest requests for viewer participation - particularly from brands or celebrities - aren't always well-received. Users previously made fun of singer Ed Sheeran for asking for duets to his song "Afterglow" in 2020, drowning him out with tubas, snare drums, and electric guitars rather than harmonizing with their voices.
Many users also accused the company of asking for free labor, interpreting the duet request as a songwriting contest for a jingle that would be used in future marketing materials.
"Let me rephrase: 'hey guys we need a new jingle but we don't wanna spend money on it,'" reads one comment with 32,900 likes on the original Planters video.
"Why don't you pay someone instead of asking for free labor," another comment on the video with nearly 1,400 likes reads.
A spokesperson for Planters told Insider that it would "enthusiastically compensate" any creators whose performances it decided to use in "paid-media efforts or other commercial uses." The spokesperson told Insider that the duets it had reposted on its profile were shared with permission from the creators themselves.
While the Planters spokesperson did not specifically address the NSFW nature of many of the duets, they said that the brand had been "blown away by the shellebration of musical performances and energy" on TikTok.
The brand has previously made missteps on social media: Insider reported that the company had made meme pages for its "Baby Nut" character, which debuted in a 2020 Super Bowl ad, prior to the character's debut. Twitter eventually suspended three such Baby Nut accounts for violating its spam and platform manipulation policy.
Of course, the name "Baby Nut" also sparked at least a few sexual "nut" related jokes on social media.