Milkshake Duck
You might remember it as lovely duck that drinks milkshakes
“The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck, a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes!”, followed by the news, five seconds later, that the duck is racist
2016·The platform era·funny
A name for somebody who becomes popular online for something charming and is then found to have an unpleasant past.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- lovely duck that drinks milkshakes
- Spread in
- 2016
- Began as
- A social-media post
- Where it started
- Format
- Phrase
- Made by
- Ben Ward, an Australian cartoonist who tweets as @pixelatedboat
- What it said
- “The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck, a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes!”, followed by the news, five seconds later, that the duck is racist
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
On 12 June 2016 the Australian cartoonist Ben Ward, posting as pixelatedboat, wrote a tweet in the form of a news cycle compressed to two sentences: the whole internet loves a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes, and then, five seconds later, we regret to inform you the duck is racist. There is no duck. There was never a duck.
It named something that had no name and immediately became the only available word for it: the ordinary person elevated to universal affection by a viral post and then, within days, found to have a history that ends the affection. Ward has said the joke was partly prompted by watching it happen to the Chewbacca Mask Lady.
Milkshake Duck became a verb, was shortlisted by Australia's Macquarie Dictionary as its word of the year for 2017, and is now standard vocabulary in writing about online fame and the machinery around it. Its author remains best known for a bird that does not exist.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Ward posts the tweet.1 What else happened on 12 June
- Mainstream
Oxford Dictionaries names it a runner-up for word of the year.1
- Mainstream
Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary names it word of the year for 2017.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · copied, redrawn and reused until the original stopped mattering · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
This first circulated as a social-media post, not as a video upload. Originally published on Twitter.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This first circulated as a social-media post, not as a video upload. Originally published on Twitter.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
- When
- The sources below date the original to 2016-06-12. ViralWorld records this as a cited claim rather than an established publication date, because it holds no copy to check it against.
What this was built on, each one a record of its own.
- Inspired by Chewbacca Mask LadyVideo · 2016
According to the term’s creator, the reaction to her later video was the likely origin of “milkshake duck”.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things