What Is 'Menugate'? The Eerie Empty Apartment Building TikTok Conspiracy, Explained

The internet is full of mysteries, unsolved situations and spooky stories. One of the eeriest ones in recent memory has emerged on TikTok: Menugate. An Atlanta man claims to be the only person living in a large apartment complex because he's never seen anybody else and, most disturbing of all, the Chinese restaurant menus he saw placed in each door on a Friday were still standing in every door on that Monday. Let's explain.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7025261385009384751

What Is Menugate?

For the uninitiated, Menugate is a series of TikTok videos in which Cody, taking tips from commenters, investigates his situation in an apparently empty apartment building. The first video, posted in 2021, shows Cody trying to figure out the situation with the Chinese restaurant menus stuck in each door. Responding to ideas from his followers, he assesses the parking garage, the WiFi signals, and the status of the building.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7025637958111825199

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7026012622067830063

In the parking garage, Cody checks out the cars of his alleged neighbors and sees they are covered in dust and some have expired plates. In more recent videos from 2023, Cody shares that there are no fire alarms in the building and still little to no trace of other people.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7208983843636890923

Who Is Cody?

According to his TikTok, Cody is an Atlanta-based lawyer who offers legal services to the community. Since Menugate burst into virality, he's gotten a lot of attention on the internet and followers on the platform. Cody has since continued to point out strange glitch-in-the-Matrix-type moments in his life going around Atlanta. He's claimed, for example, to encounter a bunch of people on the phone having the exact same conversation at local businesses.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7291466900226231594

His other content is about being a lawyer and sharing facts about the law and legal trivia. He specializes in personal injury law.

What Is Really Going On?

Some have argued the videos aren't real and the entire Menugate phenomenon is an elaborate prank or performance art piece by Cody. Others have said that the apartment might just have low occupancy, while others have suggested there's some scam or tax evasion plot going on, run by the corporation that owns the building.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7283667094644854046

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7285106419584503046

Other commenters claim that Cody may have slipped into a glitch in the Matrix or is living in his own personal version of the Truman Show. But these points of view seem to strain the limits of the believable.

---

For the full history of Menugate, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for even more information.