IHOb

Overview

IHOb is an acronym for "International House of Burgers," which was announced as the new name for the chain restaurant International House of Pancakes (IHOP) in early June 2018.

Background

On June 4th, 2018, the @IHOb Twitter feed posted a short video in which the "P" in the IHOP logo slowly flips to become a lowercase "b," followed by the date June 11th, 2018 (shown below). Within 72 hours, the tweet gained over 25,400 likes and 10,400 retweets.

Developments

The following day, the @IHOb feed posted a poll asking "IHOb? What could it b?" (shown below).

Online Reaction

Also on June 5th, Twitter user @lexie_swanson tweeted that the "b" stood for "burgers," claiming that she was an employee of an IHOP restaurant (shown below).

On June 6th, Twitter^[1] published a Moments page titled "IHOP says its changing its name to 'IHOb'," collecting various reactions to the tweet. Meanwhile, UpRoxx^[2] published an article about online reactions to the announcement titled "IHOP Is Changing Its Name To ‘IHOb’ And The Internet Is Trying To Figure Out What It Means." Also on June 6th, the Desus & Mero YouTube channel uploaded a video discussing the new titled "IHOP to IHOb?" (shown below).

June 11th Announcement

On June 11th, 2018, the @IHOb Twitter feed posted a new video revealing that the "b" stood for "burgers" (shown below). Within four hours, the tweet gained over 14,000 likes and 7,200 retweets.

That day, Twitter published a Moments^[4] page titled "The restaurant formerly known as IHOP announces what the new 'b' stands for," which collected various reactions to the announcement. That same day, the IHOb feed posted a tweet revealing that the restaurant would continue to sell pancakes (shown below).

IHOP Name Change

On July 9th, 2018, IHOP posted a tweet announcing that they "faked" their name change in order to promote their new burger menu (shown below).

That day, Twitter user @SlimJosa^[5] replied to a tweet about the announcement with a joke referencing the Feeling Cute, Might Delete Later meme (shown below). Within 48 hours, the tweet gained over 340,000 likes and 98,500 retweets.

IHOp

On May 27th, 2019, the official @IHOP account tweeted the message "What could the P be? Find out June 3. #IHOP" followed by a short clip showing the "b" in the logo slowly turning back into a "p" (shown below). Within 48 hours, the tweet gained over 5,400 likes and 840 retweets.

In response, various users replied with jokes about the logo change referencing various memes, including Ah Shit, Here We Go Again and How Many Times Do We Have to Teach You This Lesson Old Man? (shown below).

Search Interest

External References