If you ever wander around on Twitter, you may have noticed in the last few days that Prego was trending.
Why might a family-friendly brand of sauce be trending, you might wonder? Did they drop a new recipe?
No, it's actually not Prego's "fault" for trending at all. Rather, it's how the jarred sauce was being utilized by a woman who has since gone viral.
In a video on the "Josh and Lisa" Facebook page, Lisa presented a "life hack" no one asked for and quite frankly no one found the least bit appetizing. The couple uploaded the video back in April on their Facebook page, where it had 2.4 million views, as well as over 12-thousand mostly negative comments.
In the video, Lisa supposedly shared with a friend how she prepares to host a large group of friends for dinner, by utilizing just the island in her kitchen.
The video opens with Lisa opening two industrial-sized Prego jars and emptying the contents directly on her countertop. Throughout the rest of the video, Lisa builds her large spaghetti dish complete with what appear to be store-bought frozen meatballs, copious amounts of parmesan cheese and two large pots worth of steaming spaghetti. As if that were not enough, Lisa also put salad and Italian dressing right up against the still-hot spaghetti, as well as sliced, but not seasoned, Italian loaves of bread.
Lisa gushed over her idea:
"This is the easiest way to make spaghetti for a crowd."
"You don't have to worry about dishes or a mess or anything like that."
At the end of the video as she finished arranging the food, Lisa asked:
"How delicious does this look?"
You can watch the video here:
The video took off again and resulted in Prego's trending fame when YouTuber Jarvis Johnson shared the video on his Twitter profile.
Johnson quipped:
"What a normal and ultimate spaghetti hack!"
But the video was called out by a lot of people as being a stunt designed to get clicks.
Tired of people wasting food like this for social media attention— \u1d0a\u1d07\u029f\u1d00\u27b4 (@\u1d0a\u1d07\u029f\u1d00\u27b4) 1620673060
Uh, NO. Spaghetti sauce should never come in jars, people should never be served food off nasty kitchen counters, & if you're too lazy to even serve buffet style, don't invite guests.— Dixie Diva \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 \ud83c\udf0a (@Dixie Diva \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 \ud83c\udf0a) 1620701700
filipinos lay food out on banana leaves for communal feasts called kamayan. the food is meant to be eaten with hands as is culturally the norm and the banana leaves are there to quickly clean up mess - pls someone wtf is the point of mixing spaghetti on the counter?pic.twitter.com/QWczbtCSRS— \ud83d\udda4\ud83d\udc9cMcHelsea: Rise\ud83d\udc9c\ud83d\udda4\ud83e\udd8b (@\ud83d\udda4\ud83d\udc9cMcHelsea: Rise\ud83d\udc9c\ud83d\udda4\ud83e\udd8b) 1620685891
OH it gets WORSEpic.twitter.com/DwYCn5Z2w6— Emphabet and Welcome to The Dark Hour (@Emphabet and Welcome to The Dark Hour) 1620706380
This is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life.\n\nOn multiple planes.\n\nFrom culinary to character.— Fred Harding (@Fred Harding) 1620731073
I just watched a woman make spaghetti and meatballs on her counter top and now I hate everything.— Sin & Tonic \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\udde6#BlackLivesMatter (@Sin & Tonic \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\udde6#BlackLivesMatter) 1620785970
Some made jokes.
My mouth really started to water when she started dumping \u201ccheese\u201d from a bottle onto the cold sauce.— Helen Kennedy (@Helen Kennedy) 1620699628
"So that's parmesan cheese?"\n\nIf only there was a clue to the type of cheese it was. pic.twitter.com/HvS3XA18Yh— Danny (@Danny) 1620671218
No, their entire family would disappear. Their dog would disappear. Their entire lineage would disappear.— Sai-fon (@Sai-fon) 1620757973
Whether people thought it was a stunt or not, no one was a fan.
Freaking Gross & Ridiculous!! Preggo = #Yuck— John Luke (@John Luke) 1620757815
I'm not Italian and I find this obscene and offensive to the cuisine.https://twitter.com/jarvis/status/1391821103417356293\u00a0\u2026— General William T. Sherman (@General William T. Sherman) 1620751190
*slowly backs out of room, keeping one eye on empty Prego jars*— Katharine Strange (@Katharine Strange) 1620790547
I stopped watching after I saw cold unseasoned prego...— Jessica S (@Jessica S) 1620792693
This isn't the first time, either, one of the couple's strange videos garnered copious amounts of negative views.
The couple's goal seems to be to get negative reactions to their videos. Negative watching is going into a video, knowing that you're going to hate the result but then sticking around, and commenting your distaste, anyway.
If the video is monetized, the negativity still earns money for the poster.
Before the "Ultimate Spaghetti Hack," Lisa created a large arrangement of nachos on her countertop, but by the time she mixed everything, including the chips, together, it looked like a strange, brown-orange blob.
Prior to that, she made s'mores with bacon instead of graham crackers.
Before the strange food videos started to drop, the couple shared a video of Lisa's mom's reaction as they shared the news of expecting a baby. Though this video was more wholesome, it totally gave fans the wrong idea of what to expect in the couple's future content.
After breaking the news to Lisa's mom, their content spiraled out of control with pranks and wasted food.
But since they seem to be having fun and making money with their strange concoctions, hopefully someone watching out there is having a few laughs.
