Baby Nut

About

Baby Nut or Baby Mr. Peanut refers to the reborn version of Planters' mascot Mr. Peanut which was revealed during a Super Bowl LIV commercial in February 2020. Following the reveal, the character became a subject of memes online, including memes drawing comparisons to Baby Yoda, memes expressing a desire to violently destroy the Baby Nut, and jokes about its name. Additionally, Baby Nut meme accounts created before the reveal were discovered, suggesting that Planters attempted to force a meme.

Origin

On February 2nd, 2020, American snack-food company Planters aired the commercial "Tribute" during the Super Bowl LIV (shown below).^[1] In the commercial, the character Mr. Peanut, which the company declared dead several days prior, was revealed to be reborn as Baby Nut, an anthropomorphic baby peanut in a tophat.

- Is that a baby nut?
- [Dolphin sounds] Just kidding. I'm back.

Spread

Following the reveal of the character, multiple memes and posts about Baby Nut were made on Twitter, Instagram and other online platforms. In many posts, users expressed an intention to violently destroy the character by crushing him or turning him into paste. For example, a February 2nd post by Twitter^[5] user @webshoots received over 18,000 retweets and 91,300 likes (shown below, left). A same-day post by Instagram^[6] user igotzucc received over 8,400 likes (shown below, right).

Additionally, meme drawing comparisons to Baby Yoda, as well as posts questioning the chosen name of the character were posted (examples shown below).

Forced Meme Allegations

On February 2nd, 2020, Insider^[2] posted an article titled "Planters engineered a viral Super Bowl moment with Baby Nut. A network of meme pages was created before its debut to ensure internet fame." In the article, the author revealed that several Twitter accounts, such as @BabyNutBaby, @BabyNutReal, @babynutmemes, @BabyNutLOL and @BabyNutFanpage, which posted Baby Peanut memes^[3][4], were created in January 2020, before the public knew about the character. This suggested that Planters created and ran the accounts. In the hours following the character reveal, some of the accounts, including @BabyNutBaby, @babynutmemes, and @BabyNutLOL, were suspended.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References