About

Kendrick Lamar "Mustard" Shirts refers to a series of T-shirts sold on the TikTok shop with rapper Kendrick Lamar shouting "Mustard!" on them, referencing the lyric about DJ Mustard on Lamar's 2025 song "tv off." Prominent versions of the shirt showed a Peanuts universe Kendrick Lamar and a knock-off Heinz mustard label. Many of the promo videos for the shirts used the same template, which started with a hillbilly fish from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie saying, "Mustard or ketchup," and slapping his knee. Many TikTokers thought that the shirts were cringe and corny, echoing a growing feeling online from some about pro-Kendrick Lamar memes in the fallout of his beef with fellow rapper Drake, which culminated in diss tracks like "Not Like Us" and reached peak cultural saturation by early 2025 following the Super Bowl. The T-shirts with the extended "MUSTAAAAAAAARD" text became a symbol of the pushback against pro-Kendrick Lamar memes, posts and internet chatter, often expressed in ironic memes that made fun of his fanbase for glazing him.

Origin

On November 23rd, 2024, Twitter / X ^[1] user Ali Graham (@lil_ye) posted original fan art of Kendrick Lamar as a Peanuts character shouting, "Mustard!" receiving over 80,000 likes in four months (shown below).

Soon after, TikTok shop creators ripped the abovementioned design and started selling variations of it, such as TikToker^[2] @mvpshopp on November 30th, whose original video received over 15,300 likes in four months (shown below).

In the following months, multiple TikTokers^[3][4] created Mustard-themed T-shirts to sell on the shop.

Currently, the first known viral post to mock the "Mustard" shirt phenomenon was shared by TikToker^[9] @kainoemperor on March 5th, 2025. It showed a man shooting a gun with the caption, "What I'mma do if I see one more Kendrick Lamar shirt with the same "MUSTARD” tag line made from 1000% polyester with the same SpongeBob clip of Super Bowl one," gaining over 6,800 likes in a week (GIF version shown below).

Spread

On March 6th, 2025, TikToker^[5] @kenneth_.38 posted a photo that showed a "Mustard" shirt from the TikTok shop, adding a caption that said, "Ain't no one buying TS," gaining over 44,300 likes in six days (shown below).

Also on March 6th, TikToker^[6] @jakew.illiams posted a brainrot edit of a "Mustard" shirt promotion with the SpongeBob fish saying, "Mustard!" gaining over 33,100 likes in six days (shown below).

On March 8th, 2025, TikToker^[7] @garci200 posted a brainrot edit that used the flame explosion CapCut effect on an image of a "Mustard" TikTok shop shirt, captioned, "Who is buying TS," gaining over 572,700 likes in four days (shown below).

On March 9th, TikToker^[8] @mason44461 posted a similar video, captioned, "Who buying TS," gaining over 46,700 likes in three days (shown below).

All of the abovementioned videos used some combination of emojis in their captions that included the broken heart (💔), wilted flower (🥀) or low battery (🪫), akin to the 💔 Has Gone Mainstream, We Now Use 🥀 meme and JuggTok.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References