About

KFC Deep Fried Rat refers to the viral news post and belief that KFC has deep fried a rat before, and that rats jump in the KFC deep fryers whenever they see them. These jokes are often used as a video exploitable format with videos of people jumping into pools or other liquids.

Origin

On June 17th, 2015, the viral news story went out about a person who believed that they had bitten into a deep fried rat at a KFC restaurant instead of a piece of chicken. CNN^[1] reported on the story, with their upload to YouTube on June 17th receiving over 6.5 million views in seven years, despite later reports coming out that the 'rat' was DNA tested to prove that it truly was chicken (shown below).

Spread

On October 15th, 2020, the Tiktoker tcezy^[2] uploaded a Tiktok in which they talk about the most disturbing things to be found inside of KFC meals, with the first example being the KFC deep fried rat, getting over 125,000 likes in two years and popularizing the KFC deep fried rat meme (shown below).

A month later, on November 4th, 2020, the Tiktoker jelk.boys^[3] uploaded a video in which he is a rat looking at a deep fryer inside of KFC, going back and forth with himself on what to do, before finally throwing himself in at the end of it. That video as one of the earliest examples of rats jumping into the deep fryer at KFC earned over 17,500 likes in two years (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References