As someone with a daily average of 12 hours of screentime, I feel qualified to say that I’m an expert in the TikTok comments section. One thing I’ve noticed in my extensive studies is just how exhausting it can be sometimes. It seems impossible to have a productive discussion about anything without it devolving into mindless fighting. Online communication is in terrible shape, and I think I’ve identified why—bean soup theory.
“Bean soup theory” came from a 2023 TikTok uploaded by user @vibingranolamom, which has nearly 1 million likes and over 10 million views. The video itself is just a simple step-by-step guide on how to make bean soup. It’s important to note that the creator was sharing a recipe specifically featuring beans as the main ingredient, as suggested by the name of the dish. The video was basically entirely bean-centric, with the majority of the runtime dedicated to showing how to prepare, season, and cook them.
One user came across the TikTok and wasn’t quite pleased with this choice, deciding to leave a (now deleted) comment reading: “Can I substitute the beans with something else?”
Many were quick to point out the absurdity of this request. Obviously, you can’t substitute beans in a bean soup. Why even attempt to make bean soup if you don’t like beans? Why not find a different recipe, preferably without beans in the first place? Why try to force your anti-bean self into what is clearly a pro-bean space?
What was perhaps a silly throwaway comment became the center of online discussion, sparking deep analysis into the landscape of social media discourse and the problems of digital debate. The phrase “bean soup theory” was coined as a reference to the commenter, though the “theory” part was just thrown in because everything on TikTok has to be a theory for some reason.
While TikTokers are seemingly ready to jump on anyone for any minor infraction, I think this was one of the rare occasions where they had a valid point. In the least offensive way possible, it’s a ridiculous question to ask, and I can’t help but wonder how we got here. I don’t think this is just an isolated instance of short-sightedness, because I’ve seen similar behaviour all over the internet. I believe there’s a greater conversation to be had about hyper individualism, entitlement, whataboutism, and how these traits prevent us from having genuine, good-faith dialogue online.
The most obvious factor contributing to bean-soup-ification is the way online spaces inherently encourage self-centeredness and entitlement. Your social media feed is designed to be specifically tailored to your individual interests, because this increases engagement and profits. If you’re shown posts that you like, you’re going to spend a longer time scrolling through the app. This means that you can be served more ads, have more opportunities to click on ads, and you’re generating more activity/data that can be sold to advertising firms.
Your time is their money, and corporations love money. Social media companies have a vested interest in appealing to you, and so they position you as the most important person while you use their platform. You have almost complete control over who you follow, who you block, what posts you interact with, etc. In this way, curated algorithms promote selfishness. They create the illusion that your satisfaction is way more important than everyone else’s. You don’t need to care about the needs, interests, or opinions of others when scrolling through Instagram, it only matters if you personally are enjoying it. You don’t really think about the fact that this isn’t a unique experience: the app is doing the same exact thing for everyone else. Unquestioned, this develops into the mindset of “every post is directly targeted towards me”, which creates tensions if challenged. Seeing a piece of content that doesn’t align with you, after spending hundreds of hours on a platform which subtly convinces you that you are the centre of the universe, is going to be jarring. The idea of someone having a contrasting belief would feel almost inconceivable after having your viewpoint constantly validated for so long. So, when a bean-hater comes across a pro-bean post, they forget that some things just aren’t for them. They insist that their tastes be catered to, an insistence fueled by the design of social media algorithms, even in situations where it’s impossible. Thus, the demand for beanless bean soup is born.
Another problem with the bean soup comment is the aspect of learned helplessness. Instead of taking the initiative to find a recipe that doesn’t include beans, the bean-hater just sits and waits to be told what to do. If you were truly determined to make soup without beans, all you’d have to do is open Google and search for a new recipe. You could even research common bean substitutes and adapt the existing recipe. All of this information is easily accessible on the very device you’re using to comment. But rather than do it themselves, people who embody bean soup theory want to be immediately given the answer. Another example of this I see all the time is with clothes. A person will be wearing the most generic, basic piece of clothing ever produced, and someone will still comment “Where’s the top from?” It would’ve taken maybe 10 seconds to Google “white tank top” and find the exact same thing, but it’s somehow easier to sit back and hope that you’ll eventually get a response.
Learned helplessness is annoying to come across, but it has worse consequences than just being irritating. This type of behaviour diminishes your ability to think critically and independently, making you incredibly susceptible to misinformation and propaganda. Someone who blindly accepts whatever’s told to them, never verifies the information they receive, and spreads these things as if they are 100% true, is a prime target for manipulation and exploitation. Bad actors rely on you trusting everything you see online, which allows them to control the narrative for their own gain. This could be someone spreading nasty rumours about a celebrity they don’t like, a hate group promoting their ideology, someone sharing an intentionally bad beanless soup recipe, etc. This all leads back to a basic tenet of internet safety: don’t trust random people in TikTok comments. You shouldn’t completely rely on strangers to help you, and you definitely shouldn’t assume they have your best interests at heart. You shouldn’t even fully trust me as the author. Also, it’s literally easier to find whatever you want by yourself anyways.
Probably the most annoying application of bean soup theory is as a false means to establish moral superiority. The basic premise in any bean soup adjacent moral argument boils down to: “What about X?”, where X is completely irrelevant or separate from the original point. For example, someone may say “What about people who are allergic to beans?”
This is a question/criticism that purposefully ignores common sense to make the creator sound like a deeply inconsiderate person. How could you forget about the people that don’t eat beans? How could you be so ignorant? Except, this comment has nothing to do with anything actually presented in the video; it’s trying to debunk points that were never made. The point was to demonstrate how to make bean soup.
That’s it.
There’s nothing saying that you absolutely have to make bean soup, that you have to like bean soup, or that everyone can eat bean soup. The appropriate subject of critique would be the quality of the recipe itself, and a hypothetical person being allergic to an ingredient in the recipe says nothing about its merits. I’m not trying to say that you can’t bring up new ideas that weren’t mentioned in the original video—that’s how critical thought works—nor am I dismissing the “What about X?” format entirely. The issue is whether that idea is relevant and logically related. Good communication needs to have good structure, even in petty online arguments.
To be honest, everyone online needs to chill out and touch some grass (myself included). I think a lot of our problems would be solved if we stopped taking social media so seriously. We don’t need to waste energy arguing about bean-esque topics.
Let’s put the pitchforks down and pick the soup spoons.