Overview

NYU Quarantine Meals refers to the inadequate meals given to New York University students during their period of quarantine following their arrival to the dormitories. In August 2020, TikTokers, Redditors and Twitter users who were staying in NYU dormitories began posting photos and videos of their meals or complaining about not receiving a meal at all. The overwhelming online response caused the university to apologize.

Background

On August 19th, 2020, TikTokers and Redditors on r/NYU began complaining about the meals they were receiving from the University during their mandatory quarantine. TikToker bootysnail uploaded a video of the inadequate food she was given that day and gained over 268,000 likes in a day (shown below). Redditor july890 posted to r/nyu^[1] saying, "Hey guys. Anyone know who to contact or what to do if you’re not getting meals delivered to your dorm? I haven’t eaten in more than 24 hours, I’ve tried calling the resource center, but they say it’s up to dining services…" and Redditor cano991 responded by sharing an email from the university which read:

“Dear Student,
Welcome to NYU.
Because you are in a temporary room assignment, there may be an issue today getting your meals to your room on time. As a result, we would like to offer you the opportunity to order from GRUBHUB and we will reimburse you by emailing you a $30 GRUBHUB virtual gift card in the near future.
We apologize for the inconvenience. Should you have any questions, please contact us at earlydining@nyu.edu.”

Developments

On August 19th, 2020, TikToker christinesclub uploaded a video of the one meal that was delivered to them which included watermelon chicken salad (shown below, left). The video received over 33,600 likes in a day. Soon after, TikToker rico_da_fool shared a video about a meal they received adding the caption, "Chicken caesar salad but the chicken caesar salad is silent" (shown below, center). The video garnered over 310,300 likes in a day. TikToker nautica.n also shared a video of the now viral food watermelon chicken salad which accumulated over 83,400 likes in a day (shown below, right).

The next day, Twitter user @katiefliesaway^[2] commented on the rise in NYU quarantine meal TikToks by tweeting, "you: I'm on straight tiktok / me, elite: I'm on NYU quarantine meal tiktok" (shown below). The tweet acquired over 730 likes in a day.

That same day, New York University responded to the complaints on their Twitter^[3] account saying, "We are aware of students' complaints about the meals they have received in quarantine. The complaints are valid. This large-scale delivery of meals to student rooms is a never-before-tried operation for us and our food vendor, Chartwells" (shown below, left). The tweet garnered over 210 likes in a day. That day, Redditor saturday-excuse uploaded a watermelon chicken edit of a Watermelon Sugar posted to r/nyu^[4] and received over 240 points (98% upvoted) in a day (shown below, right). Mashable^[5] published an article on the controversy.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References