About

Celebrities Eaten By a Pelican refers to a social media trend and series of breaking news parodies in which people share fake news updates that a certain celebrity has been eaten or has been attempted to get eaten by a pelican, typically using the phrasal template "BREAKING NEWS | 🚨 X Has Been Eaten by A Pelican." Spawned by a post about Pierce the Veil musician Vic Fuentes, the trend gained virality in December 2024 on X / Twitter.

Origin

On December 7th, 2024, X^[1] user @weezygeese posted a photograph of American musician Vic Fuentes next to a photograph of a pelican, writing, "BREAKING NEWS | 🚨 Singer / Guitarist Vic Fuentes has been eaten by a pelican." The post (shown below) received over 2,000 reposts and 8,500 likes in four days.

On December 8th, 2024, X^[2] user @sweetlithonia made a similar post inspired by the tweet, writing that actor and musician Donald Glover had been eaten by a pelican. The post (shown below) received over 5.9 million views, 13,000 reposts and 157,000 likes in three days.

Spread

Following the post, the joke achieved viral popularity on social media, with users making fake news posts about various celebrities and characters getting eaten by a pelican. For example, on December 8th, 2024, X^[3] user @wonandlonely shared a version of the meme about Stray Kids member Kim Seungmin that received over 1,100 reposts and 7,500 likes in three days (shown below).

On December 9th, 2024, X^[4] user @ShinjiKamuro__ posted an Arataka Reigen version that gained over 540 reposts and 2,400 likes in two days.

Additionally, the viral Donald Glover meme spawned additional memes referencing it. On December 8th, 2024, X^[5] user @funnycolaguy posted an edit of the "This Is America" music video referencing the meme that received over 4,700 reposts and 56,000 likes in three days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References