Overview

SweetBabyFishin, also known as Guy Feeding Barbeque Sauce to Fish, is an Instagram user who, in June 2024, began posting videos of himself force-feeding Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce to fish (particularly largemouth bass) that he just caught, then throwing them back into the water. The videos went viral in July 2024 after they were shared on X / Twitter, inspiring reactions, memes and backlash towards the user, with many seeing the act as animal cruelty and demanding his account be taken down or legal action be taken against the user.

History

On June 3rd, 2024, Instagram^[1] user sweetbabyfishin posted his first video in which he pours Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce into a fish's mouth and over its body, then tosses the fish back into the lake, captioning the video, "sauce em and toss em," garnering over 740 likes in a month (shown below). Two people are present in the video and both laugh as they throw the fish back.

The user posted six more videos between June 3rd and July 7th. The most popular video was the second that he posted to Instagram^[2] on June 3rd in which he does the same thing as a friend cheers him on, garnering over 649,000 likes in a month (shown below, left). On July 7th, he uploaded a video to Instagram^[3] that gained over 3,000 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Online Presence

July 2024 Virality

On July 8th, 2024, X^[4] user @15HunnidJustin shared several of sweetbabyfishin's videos, writing, "There’s a IG page dedicated to catching fish and pouring BBQ sauce in the fish mouth and this gotta be top 5 dumbest shit the internet has ever seen," garnering over 53,000 likes in two days.

The videos garnered significant criticism from viewers. That day, X^[5][6] users @kokabiel__ and @hoeglizzy made critical posts responding to the videos, the former calling it animal cruelty and wondering why animal cruelty towards non-mammals is "normalized," garnering over 91,000 likes and 150,000 likes, respectively, in two days (shown below, left and right).

On July 9th, 2024, X^[7] user @TRIGGERHAPPYV1 shared one of the videos, garnering over 17,000 likes in a day. Later that day, X^[8] user @microgoeswild made a post discussing the dangers of feeding a fish BBQ sauce that garnered over 9,200 likes in a day, writing:

Things like bbq sauce have garlic and onion which contain compounds such as thiosulfates and disulfides, which can damage red blood cells in fish, leading to hemolytic anemia. The sugar in the sauce can also cause an excess of bacterial and fungal growth which will fuck up their digestive tract and affect the water quality around them when they poop. Doing shit like this can fuck up the entire ecosystem for a couple likes. It’s not even funny content. It’s just destructive and abusive and stupid.

Also on July 9th, X^[9] user @DubzyOnceAgain posted, "A poor bear is gonna eat this fish and then go the rest of its life chasing that dragon," garnering over 92,000 likes in a day (shown below). That day, one of the videos was posted to the subreddit /r/iamatotalpieceofshit,^[10] garnering over 9,900 upvotes in a day.

Search Interest

External References