- People are sharing videos in which some slices through seemingly everyday objects, like toilet paper and plants, that turn out to be made of cake.
- Many people described the videos as upsetting and unsettling, and a psychologist told Insider that makes sense.
- The cake videos play with our perceptions of reality, which confuses the brain.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
If you logged onto Twitter or TikTok last week, chances are you saw at least one video of a strange new trend that involves cake.
In the pecular videos, a hand takes a knife to all manner of objects — from a toilet paper roll, to a potted plant, or even a human hand — and slices through them.
They open with ease, and it turns out that they're actually all cakes.
—James (@Surreycricfan) July 14, 2020
As this bizarre trend swept the internet, the majority of reactions were of alarm. Some called it "unsettling" and "upsetting," and said it was messing with their sense of reality.
—rach⁷ (@tastyinbusann) July 11, 2020
—K. (@kieraforstell) July 17, 2020
—nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) July 12, 2020
Jokes aside, there's a real psychological reason why the edible trend is freaking out so many people, according to Pascal Wallisch, an NYU psychology professor who studies subjective reality.
The perceived objects, be it an onion or toilet paper roll, "have very specific connotations" for humans, Wallisch said.
Once someone cuts into that object — and, by extrapolation, your sense of reality — to reveal cake, there are "these clashing categories that are both active in your mind."
We all trust our eyes, and the cakes upset that trust
It may seem ridiculous, even funny, to be upset by cake. But according to Wallisch, we have little control over the matter.
The cake videos upset people's learned realities. So, even if you know they're just funny videos, they illicit disturbed feelings.
There are plenty of examples of "perceptual experiences where you can activate certain kinds of expectation models" to mess with peoples' minds. Before cakes, we had The Dress (was it white and gold, or blue and black?). Then, there was sound recording where some people hear "Laurel" and others hear "Yanny."
Wallisch, who has studied both of those trends, said the key is that they make you doubt yourself.
"It shows that your perception is not direct, in the sense that you're living in your own head, in a sense that your expectations and your experience and your current situation and all of that really plays a role," in what you believe is real.
"People kind of have a tendency to actually believe their eyes. And I don't blame them because you know, it works," Wallisch continued. "I mean, you don't often get into accidents, you don't bump into things. So it works surprisingly well."
Over time, you expect the objects to be cake
There's some good news for those who have already weathered the cake-video storm: they're less likely to be startled by these videos in the future.
"No one has studied this, but my prediction is the people who have seen this before will now take it into account and add that to their expectations," Wallisch said.
"Now," he added, "they're expecting the thing to be a cake."
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Why the 'everything is cake' trend is so unsettling, according to a psychologist - Insider - INSIDER
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