The 'Is It Cake?' Meme, Explained

By now, you must’ve come across at least some of your friends on social media wondering if something is cake. And by “something,” we mean literally everything — is this article cake, what about the news that the Washington team is finally changing their name? Is that cake? Because coupled with last week’s Supreme Court ruling, it feels a little too good to be true. What’s the deal with cake and why are your housemates approaching you with two knives in each hand and treating you worse than when they suspect you have the coronavirus? From what we can tell from tracking activity online, it appears that sometime last week the “is it a cake?” meme really started to pick up steam on Twitter after BuzzFeed’s Tasty posted a compilation video of realistic items that were cut into and revealed to be cake.

These Are All Cakes pic.twitter.com/ejArkJHaid

— Tasty (@tasty) July 8, 2020

A bright red Croc, a roll of toilet paper, a potted aloe plant, a sudsy bar of soap, a lotion bottle, all things that arguably shouldn’t be cakes were revealed to be, in fact, cakes! Which has led many across social media to question life itself. Yes, 2020 is so depressing that a simple video about silly cakes has sent people into a spiral of existential questioning that has taken over Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and probably Facebook (we’ll check with our weird Uncle). The meme is a slight callback to an earlier 2000s Portal meme known as “The Cake Is A Lie” which dealt with false promises, so the internet has always had a troubled distrust of cake it seems.

It's 2021. The virus is waning, but a new pandemic is upon us.

I try to open twitter. My phone is frozen. I press harder and my finger goes through my phone. It is cake.

— Anjali. (@Anjalaaay) July 13, 2020

Me at home wondering if I’m also a cake pic.twitter.com/qYnGCAoOcC

— nathan (@868nathan) July 12, 2020

The clip posted by Tasty originates from the Red Rose Cake & Tuba Geçkil Instagram account, which is run by Turkish National Culinary Team Captain Tuba Geçkil, a “cake and sugar” artist who specializes in realistic cakes. Geçkil has made a Sonic the Hedgehog cake, a cake shaped like Bob Marley’s face, a Koala bear cake, a cake of Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, a cake version of Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” a… packet of raw chicken? They’re truly mesmerizing! Check out the Red Rose Cake and Tuba Geçkil Instagram if you want your mind blown, but if you come away wondering if 2020 is cake, that’s on you!

Check out these tweets below to see just how weird this cake meme is becoming.

It has gotten to this point bro. 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Check if everything around is cake.pic.twitter.com/42C7V8bBQT

— CHUKA (@IamKellyJoe) July 13, 2020

For 5 dollars I will come st*b your boyfriend to make sure he’s not a cake pic.twitter.com/Jd0A7Vif2D

— Mat George (@matchu_chutrain) July 11, 2020

Laughing with my friends after testing to see it they’re actually a cake pic.twitter.com/BLTXIqFvtt

— Curtis Kimberlin Jr (@ckimberlinjr) July 11, 2020

https://twitter.com/miovies/status/1282052321279696898

Got to see my mom for the first time in 5 months today. Quarantined for 2 weeks, got COVID tested twice and when it was finally time to hug her, my arms went right through her because she was cake. Come on guys. That’s enough. Not everything has to be a cake. Where is my mom?

— Ben Schwartz (@rejectedjokes) July 12, 2020

https://twitter.com/SeanTalksSW/status/1282354486325936136

https://twitter.com/JESGETIT/status/1282513732824858624