The aim of this test is to assess the cleaning skills of a partner – mostly men – by paying attention to the way in which they approach cleaning a ketchup spill.
The “ketchup challenge” involves deliberately pouring a blob of ketchup onto your kitchen worktop, asking your partner to clean up the mess, and then seeing how they go about doing so.
To date, the #ketchupchallenge hashtag has racked up over 230 million views. The videos posted show the different approaches and solutions used to meet this household challenge.
When one of the @brooklynandbailey twins asks her husband to clean up the ketchup, he simply uses his hand and a wipe.
The boyfriend of debbiekval uses a monster amount of paper towel, even if it means smearing the red stain and making the surface even dirtier. This technique is also used by katherinee_310’s fiancé.
For some internet users, this method lacks so much common sense that they accuse these men of doing it on purpose.
While the challenge may seem like a bit of fun at first glance, they say it’s a good way of finding out whether a partner is relying on their other half to do the household chores.
Katherinee_310’s video, which has been viewed more than 33 million times, provoked strong reactions from some internet users, who went so far as to call out her fiancé’s behaviour as “weaponised incompetence.”
This notion, also known as strategic incompetence, is a psychological tactic that involves deliberately doing a task or job badly so that someone else does it for you. Eventually, the other person no longer asks the person deemed incompetent to carry out the task, and either does it themselves or delegates it to someone else.
However, like many TikTok theories, this one is based on absolutist ideas that can jeopardise a couple’s partnership.
Relationship expert, Rebecca Coppersmisth, considers the trend to be somewhat unhealthy. “I don’t love the power dynamics that are happening. I think it kind of speaks to one person being a little controlling of the other that the cleaning has to be done in a certain way,” she told Today. “Truthfully, if we want our partners’ help, we need to accept that they might do things differently than we would have and that needs to be OK.”
For social networking specialist, Jaree Nimam, who analyzes this trend in a TikTok video, it would be ridiculous to think that the fate of your relationship could depend on the results of this challenge.
She also reminds couples that these challenges should be taken with a large pinch of salt. “I think these tests can be fun if you don’t take them too seriously, because sometimes, your partner might not get it right, but that doesn’t mean they’re a bad person,” she says.
Nevertheless, the specialist denounces the influence of social networks on life as a couple: “The internet is riddled with relationship tests …, and I think the reason why these challenges are so popular is, one, they get a lot of views on social media, people want to see how other people react to things, because we’re all doing a social comparison.”