Melberries / Strawmellies

About

Mellberies or Strawmellies is a TikTok cult where users set up their profile pictures to an image of artist Melanie Martinez's alter-ego edited onto a berry or a fruit, most commonly a pink strawberry. The trend gained popularity on TikTok in early July 2023, with fans of the artist using the profile pictures to recognize each other and spam under viral videos.

Origin

On March 31st, 2023,American singer Melanie Martinez released^[1] her conceptual album Portals, revealing her creature-like alter-ego: a pink humanoid with four eyes and blue hair. The alter-ego appeared in music videos for Martinez' singles "DEATH" and "VOID" (music video shown below).

On June 30th, 2023, TikTok^[2] user @miki.portals suggested setting the alter-ego's face photoshopped onto a pink strawberry as a profile picture, starting a TikTok cult. The user referred to the combined image as "strawmelly" (shown below, left). The TikTok received over
165,000 views and 25,600 likes in two months.

The practice of editing a face of a celebrity onto a strawberry had been used in various cults, namely among K-pop stans, on TikTok (examples shown below, center and right).

Spread

Starting in late June 2023, multiple Melanie Martinez fans on TikTok joined the cult, setting their profile pictures to the strawberry, and later to other berries and fruits with Martinez' alter-ego's face photoshopped onto them. On July 1st, 2023, TikTok^[3] user @veronicasawyerlover posted a video in which they scrolled through the list of their followers, most of them with Strawmelly profile pictures (shown below, left). On July 5th, 2023, user @miki.portals^[4] uploaded a collection of Melberriy edits that received over 88,700 views and 15,100 likes in two months (shown below, right).

On July 4th, 2023, Redditor Leskvy posted a rant about the Strawmelly Cult in the /r/MelanieMartinez^[5] subreddit, accusing them of instigating others to report singer Oliver Tree, Martinez' ex-boyfriend and writing that "most of them are literally 10-year-olds who don't even listen to Melanie). The post (shown below) received over 330 upvotes in two months.

The cult maintained its popularity within Melanie Martinez' fandom on TikTok through the following months.

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References