Berries and Cream

2021

Date: September 2021 · Place: TikTok, ad originally aired 2007 · Figures: Jack Ferry, original Starburst Little Lad actor · Starburst, brand · @afharrold25, TikTok revivalist · Tags: AdRevival, Sound, Loop 01. A Fourteen-Year-Old Advertisement Starburst airs a Berries and Cream commercial in 2007 featuring a powdered-wig 'Little Lad' chanting and clogging for the candy. The ad has a small cult following for over a decade. In September 2021 the TikTok user @afharrold25 chops the chant into a four-second sound and the audio spreads across hundreds of thousands of videos in a week. Jack Ferry, the original actor, surfaces and posts his own duet, now an adult, reprising the chant. The ad is older than half the kids using its sound. 02. The Sound Is the Meme TikTok's audio-as-substrate logic is fully formed by autumn 2021. The video does not have to make sense; it has to remix the sound. Berries and Cream becomes the prototype dead-ad revival, a pattern that will recur through 2023 with the Subway Surfers gameplay loop and through 2024 with the Costco Guys chants. Sound, not image, structures the meme. Sources • Know Your Meme, 'Berries and Cream' entry • The Verge, 'How a 14-Year-Old Starburst Ad Took Over TikTok' (24 September 2021) • Jack Ferry, reprise upload (TikTok, September 2021)