Does Justin Bieber eat burritos from the middle?
Such was the question asked by pop culture enthusiasts on social media last week, after a photo of the singer — or a man who looked suspiciously like him — taking a bite from the center of a burrito went viral.
However, on Sunday, a group behind the photo, Yes Theory, revealed that they'd engineered the story as an elaborate prank.
"We wanted to prove a point: that staging a story as goofy as it was can be done much more easily than most people can imagine," a member of the group explained in a video. "Our plan was simple: fly [Bieber lookalike] Brad [Sousa] out all the way from Canada to L.A. to pose as Justin Bieber doing unusual things in public."
Their plan worked. However, if you missed last week's drama, here's a breakdown of what went on:
What happened?
Last Wednesday, a Reddit user posted the photo in question and captioned it, "Justin Bieber eating a burrito sideways." The picture prompted a number of responses, with users wondering what would possess a person to eat a burrito that way. "Doing it because he knows he's being watched," one person posited. Another wondered if there was a cultural difference at play: "Because he's Canadian?" However, there were some who defended Bieber, including model Chrissy Teigen. "the only way they should be eaten tbh," she tweeted. "ends are just carb factories."
But is it Justin Bieber?
However, a conspiracy theory soon emerged: What if the man in the photo wasn't Justin Bieber after all? A representative for the singer did not respond to a request for comment from "Good Morning America," but The Cut mounted a convincing argument that the burrito eater in question was merely a Bieber lookalike. The website's photo editor wrote that after "some extensive research," she discovered that Bieber had never been photographed wearing that outfit, and that the singer's hair is a different length and color.
How hard is it to eat a burrito sideways?
Apparently, very. On Thursday, Vice published an article with the headline, "I Ate a Burrito Sideways Like Justin Bieber Supposedly Did and It Sucked," in which the author noted, "You're on borrowed time when you bite into a burrito sideways." "The gaping hole exposed by that first munch sets off a panic inside that incites you to eat as fast as possible," she wrote. "You're no longer holding lunch; you're cradling a canister of beans and rice that is soon to explode." The Cut did a similar investigation that went slightly better. "At first it wasn’t terrible. Sometimes the ends of burritos can be a little tortilla-heavy, and it was nice to bite right into the fillings," the author explained. "But, as you might expect, this technique quickly became unsustainable, and after several bites I had to put the burrito on a plate and eat it with a spoon, like a bread bowl."
What has Bieber said about this?
Nothing, at this point. We'll update the story if and when he speaks out.