There’s a new trend on TikTok that has people testing their relationship using a table condiment.
In what’s being dubbed the “ketchup challenge,” TikTokers are pouring ketchup onto their kitchen counters and asking their male partners to clean it up. That’s it. That’s the whole challenge.
The challenge is seemingly so simple that some are wondering if it can even be considered a “challenge” — but some videos have proved to viewers that it is indeed a challenge for some.
When faced with the task, the significant others reacted in different ways and had different cleaning techniques.
One woman posted a video of her boyfriend cleaning after she decorated the counter with ketchup and said she was “impressed” by the results.
TikTok user @bizwithamina’s boyfriend cleaned the ketchup with a paper towel and wiped the counter down with a wipe. He only had one small blunder — spraying a cleaner on the area not realizing it was a wood-specific cleaner.
“He did better than most,” one person applauded.
“Oh wow. How amazing that an adult can clean a countertop. I can’t believe he’s so talented,” someone quipped.
Another victim of the challenge didn’t have the same cleaning skills.
The boyfriend of user @debbiekval ended up “making a bigger mess” with the ketchup as he took a napkin and just moved it in circles over the ketchup — a method that had many people in the comments cringing.
“Ok why is he polishing with ketchup,” someone joked.
“Ngl this is a valid reason to leave him,” one wrote.
“Is he trying to paint? I’m lost,” another said.
“I want to cry,” a commenter confessed.
Another viral video of the challenge went similarly, in what one user called “another game of skit, legit, or weaponized incompetence?’”
Once again, the TikToker’s partner started rubbing the ketchup with a paper towel, spreading it all over the counter.
“Congrats on your toddler, mama!” a user joked.
“He ain’t even my man and I want to break up with him!” another commented.
“He marinated the counter,” someone said.
User @brooklynandbailey asked her “clean freak” husband to do the challenge — and he just scooped it up with his hands.
“A man who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty I guess,” the video was captioned.
“Nah he’s valid for that paper towels are expensive,” someone quipped in the comments.
“His method was pure chaos lol,” another wrote.
Even Heinz got in on the fun, revealing the “the only way we know how to clean it.”
In the video, the man cleans up the ketchup by doing the only reasonable thing — driving to get frozen fries, putting them in the air fryer, then using the ketchup for its main purpose: as a dip.
One video shows a woman having a fake conversation mocking the trend and explaining how this is a “challenge” to people.
“You’re telling me there are hundreds of grown men who find cleaning up a glob of ketchup so challenging it’s a challenge?” she questioned, not understanding how it’s “goofy, funny, silly that men don’t know how to clean a counter.”
In the skit, @jamiesoneileen asks herself, “Why aren’t we praising these women for having a basic domestic labor skill?”
The answer: “Because it’s not a challenge for us, it’s just expected.”
