Why do people get so excited over a jacket potato cart?

I never have a jacket potato out, because I LOVE potatoes and you are likely to get a shit one. It might have eyes, grey bits, hard bits (inside) no or not enough butter, or margarine, that weird pre-grated cheddar...

Too much of a risk, no thanks.

My child likes to watch a show on YT about a cartoon gecko. Some episodes the gecko goes off to learn about real machines (fire engines, ambulances, etc). There are a couple of episodes where we get to meet Mr T, the dessert king (or whatever he calls himself). It's an ice cream van.
A while ago I noticed a facebook post saying Mr T the dessert king was coming to our town (a long way from where he resides) and it was a big deal.

Between the photos I've seen of his "tour" and the episodes with the Gecko I have established Mr T basically shoves a load of soft scoop in a tub, covers in it gross blue mass produced sauce, sticks some crumbled chocolate bars or bags of sweets from Costco on it and that's it. That's what people go crazy for.

It's absolute shite that you could literally do at home for probably a fraction of the price and even the adults around our area were all excited about it.

This reminds me of when I ordered a burger with a side baked potato (rather than chips) and a friend of mine was outraged! I've not eaten with her since 😆

Absolutely this. My DD has never liked jacket potatoes, she’s always called them “war food”. Last month she told me that she was really, really craving a jacket potato. I was surprised but as she kept banging on I made her one, which she covered with various toppings. She just picked at it a bit and said “Eurgh, it just reminds me why I don’t like jacket potatoes”.

It’s scary that TikTok is so bloody brain-washingly powerful that it can make idiots people strongly crave a food that they actively dislike.

The algorithm chooses who gets famous, TikTok pushes certain creators and they go viral.

People like to film themselves queuing, choosing and taking a bite out of each item - what we don’t see is them in some cases not even swallowing and in many cases chucking the rest in the bin! So wasteful!

FOMO for social media, nothing to do with the actual potatoes I'd say.

Because people are sheep. Prime, Bingley mega chippy, kadayif (dubai chocolate). I like a jacket potato but I'm not queuing for hours for anything.

It's ruining Edinburgh. Small bakeries having to beg their queuing customers to let locals get to their front doors. How good can a pastry be?

I have a theory. People think that calories don't count at viral food places. So they're free to serve whipped cream with melted mars bar flavoured doughnuts topped with salted caramel etc etc etc and otherwise health conscious young women will lose their minds over it.

If calories are irrelevant then we could just heap our own favourite indulgent treats on a plate and save the queuing, the hype and the price tag.

Spud Brother or some such opened in my town - the van was only there for a month and I rarely saw anyone buy from it. A very tiny minority get viral and I bet countless other people trying to jump on the trend have lost £s.

I'm really surprised that a few other people in his town haven't tried to capitalise on it and do a rival business 'spudbloke' 'potato princess' etc. if people really are travelling for miles for such a basic dish?

I reckon he must be money laundering or something and he's bribing the council to stop competition?!

Because people are morons. Get anything hyped up on social media and people will queue for it. 🐑🐑🐑

Lots of the food influencers review it and it becomes a thing. If you look up Borough Market on YouTube, so many videos of the same stalls being reviewed by loads of different people.

Whenever a new crap food large chain eatery is opening in my city the amount of excitement and tags on the local rag Facebook page is unbelievable. I still don't get why people queue to get into Nandos for chicken and chips either.

Jason’s Jackets by Primark are better anyway!

I used to get a jacket potato over a sandwich but now that so expensive on my local stall I just get a sandwich meal deal from tesco. Pity as prefer the jacket potato. Hope the craze cools down soon

Absolutely yes, and i get more excited of fun small things more than big ones, or so I tell dh

Spudman was at a festival I were at last year which I was grateful for-some festival food isn't appropriately priced according to how long it keeps you full for.

A few people said he was a bit of a dick for putting up fences to avoid a huge surge-so people had to queue within a boundary. My ex was very excited to get a spud from him, and they were nice, and not too expensive given how much other, less filling festival food was. I was grateful that he had vegan cheese and beans as an option but the 2nd time I went, he'd ran out! Nice fella.

But as for wetting myself over a baked potato?Nope.

Honestly if there’s anything worth getting excited over, it’s a decent jacket potato.

I've wondered the same thing about spudman. Apart from the crazy hair there isn't anything particularly unique or unusual about him or his business. I'm sure he does fine jacket potatoes but I don't understand why he's in the news so much.

The BBC seems to cover him more than any other news outlet. I wonder if he has connections to someone who works there? Or maybe one of the reporters is crashing out on Atkins and desperately craving carbs all the time.

Oh maybe! He hasn't even got a pitch yet just come up with a name, which escapes me so it's not so memorable😀

I wonder if we're in the same area, I saw one of these posts too!

Because people are sheep.