Posted on 29th March 2023
Over the last few days thousands of people on TikTok have been bumping into virtual pigman influencer John Pork on their For You pages in a big new trend where he appears to be calling their mobile phone.
John Pork, who has a human body and pig's head, first became known on Instagram in September 2018 when he posted a selfie he'd snapped outside Doune Castle in Scotland. As the new "John Pork is calling" trend emerged on TikTok in the last week, there have already been 100 million views of #JohnPork – take a look at this box of example videos from our Buzz service:
People are making TikTok edits of John Pork's Doune Castle selfie and other photos from various locations around the world. The dialling sound, and "decline" or "accept" buttons, are added using a CapCut template that's been popular recently and has now been used in more than 300,000 videos.
Similar videos have included @real_johnpork (1.4 million views) and @j0hn.pork (400,000 views), as well as accounts like @johnpork2023 posting videos about what might happen if someone declines too many calls. These accounts' @ handles are often variations of "John Pork" and all the videos they're posting are about John calling, or other memes featuring him.
British TikTok influencer Max Baledge (3.2 million followers) duetted one of the early "John Pork is calling" videos, saying "my sense of humour is so broken".
Other takes on the trend include @therealporkofporks' menacing warning about John Pork being just a few kilometres away and giving viewers the choice to "hide" or "run"; and a fake news bulletin from @john.porked about him being found dead in his home.
As more and more people bump into John Pork, variations of the trend have started emerging including people making similar characters like Raymond Pork and Linda Pork with pig nose filters on human faces.
There are several non-pig characters too in the same format, like Charles Chickens, Marvin Beak, Bill Bison, Steven Steak, Steve Beef and Rob Mutton.
Spotting TikTok trends
The John Pork meme is just one of the new trends quickly picked up and tracked by our Buzz service, which highlights some of the big talking points emerging on TikTok and social media every day.
Buzz from Shooglebox is used by journalists, creators and brand teams who need to spot and stay on top of the latest trends.
It includes a constantly updated box of cards showing at a glance and linking to viral videos, TikTok trends and other things going big on social media. Buzz customers also get regular updates alerting them to some of the things they might otherwise miss or discover late.
This stack of cards for the John Pork trend gives you an idea of how Shooglebox works – and how it could help you go from spotting a trend right at the start to tracking its development over time.
If you're interested in signing up or finding out more about Buzz get in touch here.
