TikToker goes viral with bizarre grocery store musical parody

TikTokers have taken the app’s duet feature to the extreme after one creator took an idea for a bizarre modern musical and ran with it.

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Creator Daniel Mertzlufft posted a video where he pretended he was in a modern musical about fighting in a grocery store, expertly picking apart different musical theatre cliches and pulling them together in one hilarious clip.

The video begins with Daniel dramatically singing “And we’re fighting in a grocery store,” complete with backing singers belting their hearts out, followed by high notes “for the diva tenor playing the role.” The song then descends into a quiet pullback for contrast, adding in a riff to display emotion. Daniel walks away from the camera with the caption “This is 100% the end of act 1.”

The concept originally came from a bizarre indie song that became popular on TikTok called New York Summer, written and performed by Louisa Melcher. The song itself almost sounds like a musical and in a climactic verse she sings “We’re fighting in a grocery store and I love you but I don’t know if I like you anymore.”

In late September Louisa posted a video of her showing the song to her Dad for the first time, who had a less than supportive reaction saying “Wow…it’s terrible.” The video racked up 13 million views and sparked 30,000 videos using her song.

Since Daniel’s musical interpretation, TikTokers have been inspired, duetting the video and adding layers to the already-incredible clip.

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Megan Gilbreath added on the other side of the grocery store argument, matching the energy with her harmonies, while user Kelsey Jade Bacon pretended to be the couple’s child.

It got even more ridiculous when more users began duetting the video as the store’s employee, a can of soup, a squeaky shopping cart, “the automatic door with the too-loud bell,” “the random voice that comes over the speaker,” and even “the water sprayers that always mist you when you’re reaching for kale.”

Twitter user Emma Lynn posted a thread summarising all of the incredible duets in one thread on Monday and quickly went viral, grabbing the attention of more than 24,000 other Twitter users, including popular YouTuber Tyler Oakley who quote tweeted the thread and added “this sparked joy in my day!”

Other Twitter users were just as excited, with one person writing “I can’t stop laughing at the squeaky cart… it’s still ringing in my head.” Another person wrote “Where are their Tonys…. Please ASAP.”

TikTokers have now surely proven that absolutely anything can be made into a musical if you try hard enough.