Clean Blueberry (Energy Drink)

About

Clean Blueberry and its hashtag #cleanblueberry refers to the blueberry flavor of the Swedish energy drink company Clean Drink. The drink became well-known on TikTok in early 2023 due to its product image's frequent appearance in Family Guy and Subway Surfers "overstimulation videos." Similar split-screen South Park and Chinese mobile app gameplay TikTok pages also layered the Clean Blueberry product image on top of their videos for a currently unknown purpose, likely akin to viral marketing. The odd nature of the product placement generated curiosity online.

Origin

Starting on January 1st, 2023, the Swedish energy drink company Clean Drink uploaded a series of promo videos to its TikTok^[1][2][3] page that used notable TikTok sounds such as the Zoolander Stare song. Each of them earned over 30,000 plays and 1,000 likes in one month (example shown below). The videos coincided with the release of the company's new Blueberry flavor, reported on by news outlets like Stack3d.^[4]

In late January 2023, Swedish influencers on TikTok started promoting Clean Blueberry in their content, such as TikToker^[5] @verafillers on January 21st, 2023, whose video received roughly 146,700 plays and 10,800 likes in one month (shown below, left). On January 24th, 2023, TikToker^[6] @karatefylla posted a clip from a Swedish talk show with a product image of Clean Blueberry layered in the video's bottom half. The video received roughly 43,700 plays and 900 likes in one month (shown below, right). It is currently one of the first known Clean Blueberry videos on TikTok in which the drink's product image is layered overtop seemingly for a nonsensical purpose.

Spread

After January 24th, 2023, more viral instances of seemingly nonsensical Clean Blueberry product placement surfaced in split-screen overstimulation videos on TikTok. For instance, an early example was uploaded by TikToker^[7] @oogaboogaa322 on January 26th, 2023, and was a MrBeast6000 video above gameplay with a Clean Blueberry product image visible as well. The video received roughly 1.4 million plays and 82,100 likes in one month (shown below, left). On February 1st, 2023, TikToker^[8] @tv_seriesclips posted a South Park spilt-screen video with a Clean Blueberry product image visible, earning roughly 2 million plays and 225,200 likes in three weeks (shown below, right).

Going into February 2023, more videos following the same visual format surfaced on TikTok, predominantly using the hashtag #cleanblueberry,^[9] which by February 21st, 2023, had amassed roughly 332.3 million views total. As of February 21st, 2023, it is unknown what exactly the reason is for the Clean Blueberry product placement in split-screen overstimulation videos on TikTok.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References