Overview

Radioactive Walmart Shrimp refers to memes about an August 2025 FDA warning advising people not to eat frozen bags of Walmart-branded Great Value shrimp over fears that the seafood product came in contact with Cesium-137, a radioactive material. The warning was made on August 19th, 2025, and became the subject of memes in the following days, with some of the most viral memes playing off the idea of what a radioactive shrimp might look like and what they might do if eaten.

Background

On August 19th, 2025, an FDA report warning people not to eat certain frozen shrimp products from Walmart's Great Value brand went viral online.^[1]

According to the report, certain bags of frozen shrimp potentially came into contact with the radioactive material Cesium-137, with some bags of the frozen shrimp reportedly testing positive for radioactivity at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The news was shared across social media that day, including by X^[2][3] pages like @unusual_whales and @PopCrave, inspiring memes that day.

One early example includes an August 19th post by X^[4] user @reddit_lies, who quoted @unusual_whales' post with a Big Brother Orders meme, joking that you should not listen to the FDA warning, garnering over 2,200 likes in six days.

Online Reactions

Memes about the radioactive shrimp continued to go viral over the following days as the news spread further online in late August 2025.

On August 20th, 2025, the Facebook^[5] page Domestically Dysfunctional posted a Photoshop edit of a toilet glowing green, captioned, "Do not eat the shrimp from Walmart," with a caption referencing the 3.6 Roentgen meme from the Chernobyl TV series, garnering over 10,000 reactions and 3,500 shares in five days.

On August 21st, the entomemeology Instagram^[6] page posted a collection of memes about the radioactive shrimp, garnering over 8,000 likes in four days.

On August 22nd, 2025, X^[7] user @RealKateMelvin posted a version of the Glowing Man meme, writing, "Me after eating a whole bag of them walmart radioactive shrimp," garnering over 2,000 likes in three days.

That same day, TikToker^[8] @omni.man84 posted an edit based on the news that sets flashing images of shrimp to the song "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons, garnering over 4.8 million views in three days.

On August 24th, 2025, TikToker^[9] @joe.fit posted a video parodying the song "Video Killed the Radio Star" in which the lyrics have been altered to reference the radioactive Walmart shrimp, garnering over 2.6 million views in a day.

On August 25th, Redditor u/Jjokes11 posted a Peter I Told You meme about the shrimp to the /r/dankmemes^[10] subreddit, garnering over 50 upvotes in an hour.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References