What Is The 'Family Guy Pipeline Incident' And Who's Adding All These Jumpscares? The TikTok Trend Explained

Family Guy is an iconic TV show, however, TV isn't the only place where you can watch it. On TikTok and YouTube, Family Guy clips and funny moments channels are prevalent, posting "Part 1" through "Part 1,000" of every episode, all while avoiding a copyright strike.

The way that these channels avoid copyright strikes gets pretty creative. They often use what's referred to as an "ADHD video" that's placed beneath the Family Guy clip to provide another stimulus. Sometimes, jumpscares are placed between the clips to catch the viewer off guard and the Family Guy Pipeline Incident was sort of spawned from it.

So, what is this mysterious "Family Guy Pipeline Incident" and why is TikTok recommending it? Let's explain.

What Is The 'Family Guy Pipeline Incident?'

In November of this year, multiple Family Guy clip accounts on TikTok started using the same oddly satisfying videos of a man inserting cigarettes and carrots, among other objects, into a metal pipe. Often placed beneath a Peter Griffin shenanigan, the "pipe repair" videos were used to avoid copyright claims as well as provide another stimulus for a supposedly low-attention-span-having Zoomer audience.

Because both videos were in the same video, the TikTok algorithm noticed this and started to identify the videos as a genre consisting of "Family Guy" and "pipelines." The two visuals paired side-by-side tricked the algorithm and caused a "related search" glitch.

If you're on TikTok a lot, you probably know what a "related search" is. It's a TikTok feature that's present within a video's comment section. When one goes into the comment section of a video, a blue "related search" appears at the top of the comments. For instance, if you're watching a TikTok about Harambe the Gorilla, the words "harambe's death" might appear in blue at the top of the comment section with a little magnifying glass icon next to it. When clicked on, the app takes the viewer to more videos about Harambe's death.

For the Family Guy videos using the "pipeline" videos underneath them, the blue "related search" in the comment section read "family guy pipeline incident." As stated, the videos pretty much tricked the algorithm into inventing a nonsensical "related search" query.

The "Family Guy pipeline incident" glitch occurred in mid-November and inherently sparked interest and memes as to what "the incident" was. Additionally, because TikTok was recommending the search, Family Guy clip accounts started exploiting it by writing "family guy pipeline incident" in their bios, hoping that people would get these recommended to them.

Why Are People Putting Jumpscares Into Family Guy Clips On TikTok?

As stated, there are many opportunists exploiting the "Family Guy pipeline incident" search query. However, a lot of these opportunists are also trolls who are taking advantage of innocent TikTokers who just want to watch funny Family Guy clips. They're trolling others by adding horror movie jumpscares mid-way through the Family Guy clips.

The bait-and-switch trend is garnering a lot of intrigue and reactions. Plus, it seems to be related to the imagined "pipeline incident," mostly because "the incident" sounds like some sort of creepypasta. Overall, just be wary if there's a "sensitive content" warning at the start of your daily "For You" page Family Guy clip. There's probably a Jeff the Killer heart attack lurking around the corner.

For the full history of Family Guy jumpscares and the Family Guy pipeline incident, be sure to check out our entry on the trend here for even more information.