Who Is The Guy Feeding BBQ Sauce To Fish? The Backlash Against The 'SweetBabyFishin' Videos Explained

A troubling collection of viral videos showing a man force feeding fish Sweet Baby Ray's barbeque sauce before returning them to the river are going viral on social media. The person in the videos goes by SweetBabyFishin on Instagram and a lot of people are not too happy with him. They're even calling for his account to be banned. Here's what you need to know.

Who Is 'SweetBabyFishin,' The Guy Feeding Barbeque Sauce to Fish?

In June 2024, an Instagram user who goes by SweetBabyFishin posted a video where he holds a fish he just caught and squirts a bunch of Sweet Baby Ray's barbeque sauce into its mouth. Throughout the video, he and a friend can be heard laughing about it before he throws the fish back. Since then, the user has uploaded several other videos doing the exact same thing, including one that gained hundreds of thousands of likes.

Not much is known about the user, with his real name and location completely unknown. While some of the top comments under the videos are joking about the content, others are criticizing the user for animal abuse and suggesting that he should be removed from the platform. Now, these calls have been escalated after the videos were posted to and went viral on X.

This man dumps barbecue sauce into fish’s mouths and posts it on instagram pic.twitter.com/vGzKIyEPjZ

— Crime Net (@TRIGGERHAPPYV1) July 9, 2024

How Are People Reacting To 'SweetBabyFishin?'

In July, X users began sharing the videos of SweetBabyFishin on X and Reddit. They began going viral and the majority of people were not too happy with what they saw. The videos' virality increased calls for the user to be banned from Instagram and have his videos removed, with many calling it not only animal abuse, but suggesting that the act is harmful to the fishes' environment as a whole.

One user wrote, "Things like bbq sauce have garlic and onion which contain compounds such as thiosulfates and disulfides, which can damage red blood cells in fish, leading to hemolytic anemia. The sugar in the sauce can also cause an excess of bacterial and fungal growth […] this can mess up the entire ecosystem for a couple likes." Others made memes out of the situation, as the internet tends to do.

Is 'SweetBabyFishin' Still On Instagram?

As of July 11th, 2024, most of SweetBabyFishin's videos have been removed from Instagram. There is only one video left on the user's account as of that day, which also features the user feeding barbeque sauce to a fish. It's unclear why this one was allowed to remain, if Instagram took action against the videos, or if the user deleted them himself.

Regardless, the user's account is still active, so it's unclear if he'll continue to post this kind of content, or if this is farewell for the barbeque sauce fish man.

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