Funyuns were the peak nostalgic ’90s kid snack—but are we remembering them all wrong? According to one Nashville-based TikToker, we might be seeing the “Mandela Effect” in action, but viewers are split.
In the viral clip, Christina Mandrell (@letsdolifecm) begins by filming herself in a store. “New Mandela Effect, or is it just me?” she asks before picking up a party-sized pack of Funyuns onion rings.
“Don’t they spell I-O-N?” she added. “So it’s like an onion, like a Funyion? But it says Y-U-N-S.”
She then repeats the brand name a couple more times, seemingly unable to get her head around it, before asking viewers, “Am I tripping right now?”
In Mandrell’s case, it looks like she’s learned something new about onion rings. But in the comments, viewers are divided.
Commenters Couldn’t Agree
“As someone who ate them religiously as a kid bc they were my absolute fave no other chip could compare to the point my step mom would beg me to pick something else, they were always spelled YUN,” one determined.
“No guys, it’s always been Funyuns,” a second insisted. “I used to have a big obsession with Funyuns.”
And a third wrote, “Never. Ever. Always been Y. And I’m def older than you.”
However, there were also plenty of TikTokers who were quite insistent that Mandrell was right.
“This is stressing me out,” a fourth admitted. “It WAS Funions WTH.”
While a fifth wrote, “I ain’t ever seen it spelt Funyuns in my life till now. What timeline am I OOONNNNNN? I’m so sick of this.”
Meanwhile, a sixth chimed in with the following, “Some people in the comments don’t understand a Mandela Effect. This is def one, look at the comments. There’s a Funion timeline and Funyun timeline. I’m from the Funion timeline for sure, and those are my favorites! Funyun looks so wrong!”
What Is The Mandela Effect?
In essence, the “Mandela Effect” refers to a collective, false memory that people share. The term was first coined by Fiona Broome, a paranormal researcher, back in 2009.
As the BBC describes, the story goes like this: Broome discovers that she and hundreds of other people all shared the supposed memory of Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s.
These so-called memories were so convincing: They included details like funeral footage, reactions, and news reports of the supposed death. But Mandela was released from prison in the 1990s and didn’t die until 2013.
So, we are left with this phenomenon where a bunch of people all remember the same incorrect fact.
Another example of this is in the movie “Forrest Gump.” People swear that Forrest says the line, “Sorry I ruined your Black Panther party,” when what he actually apologized for was “having a fight in the middle of your Black Panther party.”
In turn, as commenters continue to debate whether it is Funion or Funyun, it looks like we’re once again seeing the Mandela Effect in action.
@letsdolifecm Am I Trippin? #Mandela #conspiracy #mandrellaeffect #Mandelaeffect funy#funyuns
BroBible reached out to Mandrell and PepsiCo via Instagram direct message and email, respectively.