Taco Bell Wings

About

Taco Bell Wings refers to a limited-edition fast-food item at Taco Bell that are just chicken wings. They were first promoted by the company in December 2021 but were released to locations in January 2022. Memes about the chicken wings first appeared on TikTok and Facebook, where users joked about how gross they were, among other viral discussions.

History

On December 21st, 2021, The Today Show was the first to report that Taco Bell would be adding chicken wings to their menu starting January 6th, 2022, only available for one week. Besides an article^[1] they posted to their website, The Today Show also posted the news to their Instagram^[2] account. The post (shown below) received roughly 4,100 likes over the course of three weeks.

Online Presence

On TikTok, the page yungfoodbeast^[3] posted a video on December 28th, 2021, titled, "First human trying Taco Bell Wings." The video (shown below) received roughly 2.1 million plays and 58,100 likes over the course of two weeks.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7046653182352706822

Besides the video above, internet users didn't start talking about the wings in memes until they were available on January 6th, 2022. For instance, Facebook^[4] user Rollitupk was the first on the platform to talk about them, making a post (shown below, left) that captioned a pair of finished chicken wings with, "Them Taco Bell wings straight." His post received roughly 23,000 reactions over the course of four days.

Another Facebook^[5] user named Tay Mvla posted about the wings on January 6th. His take on them was more humorous and negative, stating, "Ain’t no squirrels outside now all of a sudden Taco Bell sell wings sum ain’t right." His post (shown below, right) received roughly 14,000 reactions, also over four days.

Twitter^[6] user toniiG300 posted one of the first memes on his platform to reference Taco Bell wings on January 6th, using an image of Scooby-Doo holding his belly in pain. The tweet (shown below) received 238 likes over four days.

More viral tweets appeared going into the days following. For instance, Twitter^[7] user J_don17 posted a tweet on January 8th, 2022, that referenced the United States' "chicken wing shortage," using it as evidence against buying Taco Bell wings. His tweet (shown below, left) received roughly 115,600 likes over the course of two days. On January 9th, Twitter^[8] user ethernul tweeted screenshots of an Instagram Story from Instagrammer^[9] cornfw who showed in their Story how they were "finna see wassup wit dese taco bell wings" only to find themself in the back of an ambulance later that day. The tweet (shown below, right) received roughly 216,300 likes in less than 24 hours.

Instagrammer^[10] trashcanpaul referenced the wings in a meme he posted on January 9th, using the What Happened To Him format. The meme (shown below) received roughly 77,500 likes in less than 24 hours.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References