About

Meals by Cug is a TikTok creator named Danny Mondello who's known for his Italian-American food content centered on pizza, pasta, pastries and hero sandwiches. The majority of his videos take place in New York City in which he reviews food, drinks Diet Coke (DC) and has multiple catchphrases, such as "Ya sista's favorite meatballs" and "Take care, brush ya hair," among others. He started posting content to Instagram in 2017 but didn't become notable until 2021 on TikTok when he worked with pages like Sidetalk.

Background

Danny Mondello was born in Staten Island, New York in an Italian-American family.^[1] He studied at SUNY New Platz in upstate New York where he got a degree in accounting. He moved off-campus with some roommates in 2017 where he purportedly became the house cook. From there, he got an accounting job but soon quit, instead picking up a job as a line cook in a New Paltz restaurant.

Online History

Once he started cooking for his roommates in New Paltz, Mondello started an Instagram page called meals_by_cug with "Cug" being short for "cugine," the Italian word for "cousin." He made his first post^[2] to the account on September 9th, 2017, with a photo of an egg and cheese sandwich on a bagel. The post received over 110 likes in five years (shown below). Mondello continued posting to Instagram going into the following years, however, all of his posts from 2017 to mid-2021 received under 500 likes.

On March 11th, 2020, Mondello made his first post on TikTok^[3] featuring a video of him making pasta. Over the course of two years, the video earned roughly 59,100 plays and 1,500 likes (shown below, left). He continued posting to TikTok going into the rest of 2020 into 2021. His first video to receive "For You" page engagement was posted on June 8th, 2020,^[4] comprised of a video of someone opening a hero sandwich. Over the course of two years, it received roughly 189,300 plays and 5,500 likes (shown below, right).

Mondello posted his first TikTok^[5] that went viral a year later on July 1st, 2021, featuring a video of him making "a quick afternoon snack," which was ahi tuna. The video received roughly 282,400 plays and 20,000 likes in nine months (shown below, left). On June 20th, 2021, he posted his first TikTok^[6] that reached over 1 million plays, earning roughly 1.7 million plays and 176,400 likes in nine months (shown below, right).

On November 1st, 2021, a video of Mondello outside of a Sbarro was posted by notable Instagram^[7] creator newyorknico, who wrote in the description, "New Talent Alert." The video earned roughly 316,100 views and 23,100 likes over the course of five months (shown below). The post channeled engagement back to Mondello's Instagram page.

As of April 19th, 2022, Mondello has roughly 1.6 million followers on TikTok^[8] and 495,000 followers on Instagram.^[9]

Related Memes

Diet Coke / "DC"

Mondello's character Cugine started to manifest a reliance on drinking Diet Coke with his meals, calling it "DC" as an abbreviation. The first TikTok^[10] in which Cugine drinks DC was posted on August 9th, 2021, following a trip to McDonald's. The video earned roughly 251,300 plays and 17,000 likes over the course of eight months (shown below, left). On September 16th, 2021, Mondello posted a TikTok^[11] of him in his car in the early morning, responding to a comment that read, "Who wants the over under on a Diet coke in the cup holder?" Mondello revealed in the video that there was one and gave his reasoning that it was going to be a long day. The TikTok earned roughly 6.7 million plays and 747,300 likes in seven months (shown below, right).

Other Memes

Overall, awareness of meals_by_cug spread to other platforms going into 2022 with Mondello becoming a recognizable figure on social media. For instance, on August 22nd, 2021, TikToker^[12] onlyclasss was one of the first on the platform to parody Cugine, earning roughly 44,400 plays and 4,000 likes in eight months (shown below).

On April 16th, 2022, Twitter^[13] user ElectionLegal posted a screenshot of a meals_by_cug video being recommended alongside two other, more sexually provocative Instagram Reels, captioning it, "Titties or ass? Bro, an Italian sandwich," and earning roughly 15,900 likes in three days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References