In early February 2023, model and cucumber-cutting novice Kendall Jenner and Puerto Rican Grammy winner Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (or, as he’s more commonly known, Bad Bunny) were spotted out and about together. As is customary in this day and age, rumours of a love match between the two began to quickly gain traction online.

Fast forward to mid-March, and we’re beginning to learn more and more about this potential romance. A quick sushi date here, a concealed smooch there—it seems as though these two have definitely struck up a pretty intimate connection.

Now comes the problems. Anyone familiar with Bad Bunny’s background and ethos knows that the rapper has made incredible strides for Latino music, and has been persistently dedicated to championing Spanish culture within the mainstream—something his fans hold very dearly.

So, it’s safe to say that the Bad Bunny base were not best pleased to see the rapper canoodling with a celebrity who’s gone out of her way to appropriate Mexican culture for her own financial benefits.

I cant believe we lost benito bro like this is so fucking devastating beNITO THIS ISNT YOUUUUU SOMEONE FREE HIM PLEASE IM BEGGING pic.twitter.com/L5Tq5FwpwC

— juliette⁷ FACE 🪞 (@forg_tfulhrry) March 9, 2023

In 2021, the 27-year-old model announced that she’d be launching her very own tequila brand 818 Tequila. And while this fact in and of itself is highly problematic—primarily because it shouldn’t be that easy to name five white celebrities who all own tequila brands—it was the campaign shoot that followed that really upset people.

As reported by Sky News, the promotional images, which were uploaded onto Instagram and then shortly after deleted, depicted Jenner riding a horse in an agave field, dressed in jeans and an oversized shirt with her hair in braids and a cowboy hat slung around her neck. Other photos also included tequila farmers in the field, Jenner sipping a shot of tequila and a video of the model watching a farmer distilling tequila from a distance.

Understandably, people were incredibly offended by the campaign. Notably, because of the fact Jenner spent a lot of time romanticising tequila production and cherry-picking facets of Mexican culture that she felt suited her brand. Moreover, the pictures completely erased the fact that Jenner comes from a highly affluent family and location in California, and will be simply profiting off of the work of labourers.

One particular Twitter thread addressed all of these issues, pointing out the whitewashed nature of the ad campaign and the fact that it was tiring to see so many elite public figures culturally appropriating Mexican traditions.

first of all, what is tequila?
tequila is a traditional Mexican drink made from Agave, an endemic plant in Mexico. pic.twitter.com/zuzjSQRy71

— zayn’s & cal’s bestie ! 🇲🇽 7 (@pradabellz) May 19, 2021

So, with this in mind, it makes sense that fans would be dismayed to see Bad Bunny interacting so closely with Jenner. Of course, it being the internet, some netizens took the serious route in addressing the legitimate issues concerning this duo, while others favoured a more juvenile approach, mocking Jenner and her previous pronunciation of Spanish words.

@djp2020

How Kendall Jenner FaceTimes Bad Bunny after there first date #fyp #kendalljenner #foryou #foryou #fypシ #thekardashians #funny #dating #feels #spanish #badbunny #relationships #meme #hilarious #kevinhart #kourtneykardashian #viral @kendalljenner @imkevinhart

♬ Boy's a liar Pt. 2 - PinkPantheress & Ice Spice

@kardashianreal

Wait for it…😂 #kendalljenner #badbunny #kendallandbadbunny #datingrumors #kardashians #kendall #devinbooker

♬ original sound - Kardashian Real

So, will Bad Bunny’s association with Jenner negatively impact his career trajectory or dismantle his fiercely loyal fanbase? It’s all yet to be discovered. What’s a sure thing, however, is that it’s unlikely we’ll ever see high-ranking celebrities take full ownership for their big budget mistakes. Is anyone surprised?

On 12 March 2022, both the internet and mass media came to a standstill and realised that there are indeed two types of people in this world: those who know how to cut cucumbers, and Kendall Jenner.

In episode five of Hulu’s reality show The Kardashians, Kendall was seen attempting to make herself a small snack to munch on throughout the day when viewers, and soon every living being on the internet, witnessed her unsolicited culinary skills in action. Instead of holding the phallic fruit from one end and chopping it normally from the other, the socialite contorted her arms and proceeded to cut slivers off on the board.

While the 26-year-old felt like it was a “pretty easy” task to do, momager Kris Jenner, already visualising the viral memes and TikTok edits, kept offering Kendall the prospect of fetching a “chef” to help with the snack.

“Be careful, I nicked myself,” Kris chirped, as Kendall replied “I know, I’m kinda scared”—after declining professional help from an expert… to cut bloody cucumbers. The sheer awkwardness and lack of skill set immediately threw Kendall under the meme culture bus as soon as the episode aired. Mere hours later, several TikTokers recreated the viral scene with their own twists as angry Twitter users labelled the entire ordeal as the “embarrassment of the century.”

“Obsessed with Kendall Jenner trying to prove she’s not an out of touch spoiled rich girl by insisting on making her own snack and almost dislocating her shoulder trying to slice a cucumber,” a user tweeted. “Anytime you feel like you’re bad at doing something, watch Kendall Jenner chop a cucumber,” a second advised.

Meanwhile, over on TikTok, users curated #cucumbergate—with 3.7 million views and counting—to upload parodies of the scene with Vecna from Stranger Things, imagine how Kendall would do other household chores, and even share tips on how to cut cucumbers perfectly.

For her part, shortly after Cucumbergate evolved into a full-blown cultural phenomenon, Kendall replied to a tweet that read: “Kendall Jenner trying to cut a f*cking cucumber is the most tragic thing I’ve ever witnessed.” “Tragic,” the model creatively wrote in response, seemingly aiming to silence her detractors with a word ripped from the tweet in question.

Although Kendall went on to douse herself in some self-deprecating humour by posting an Instagram Story of a cucumber and a knife with the caption “Here we go again,” sister Khloé Kardashian later revealed that she was actually not pleased with how things went down. “Oh my god, she’s not happy about that. I feel so bad… I’m like, ‘Kendall, god is fair. You’re the most beautiful human being in the world. You have wild-looking toes, god bless, and you can’t cut a fucking cucumber.’ The world is good,” Khloé shared on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast. What a brutal sibling comment to make indeed.

“She has the perfect life, this perfect life, she’s a gazelle of a human being, she walks the runway. She’s like all these amazing things, [and] you can’t cut a fucking cucumber?… Please, come over and stay with me for one week, and she’ll really cry herself a river… I want to teach her how to cut a cucumber.”

On 23 May, Kylie Jenner also acknowledged Cucumbergate and posted a TikTok with Kendall at Kourtney Kardashian’s wedding, captioning the video “Me and Cucumber Girl.” Is it just me or does someone else smell the possibilities of a manufactured reality here?

@kyliejenner

me and cucumber girl

♬ Tear in My Heart - twenty one pilots

First off, it’s worth noting that Kendall was wearing an 818—her tequila brand named after the postcode of her residence—jumper in the viral clip. The scene essentially broke the internet with her branding and logo in the forefront, and all the callbacks to the so-called “tragic” incident by other members of the family were mere attempts to burn the scene permanently into your consciousness.

I mean, think about it. The Kardashian-Jenner clan chose to air the incident themselves in the first place. Considering that Kendall has probably been surrounded by personal chefs her entire life, it’s not entirely impossible to digest the fact that she would fumble with daily tasks like these.

With 818 in the conversation and Kendall later taking to her Instagram to ‘work’ on her skill set, the marketing ploy sort of seems like one of those black-and-white advertisements which would later be colourised when the protagonist learns how to use the product in question—character development, simply put.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kendall (@kendalljenner)

In a viral video by MJ Corey, a Brooklyn-based writer and psychotherapist well known for applying media theory and postmodern philosophy to the Kardashian family stunts, the creator highlighted a particular scene in a follow-up episode of the reality show.

“The most recent Kardashians episode when Kendall kept talking about cucumbers,” Corey said as the video panned to feature a screenshot of the 26-year-old-model stating: “Wow, the cucumbers on that salad are calling my name.” Corey highlighted that the scene was at the beginning of the episode, where Kendall was seen having lunch with a friend and they were talking about being house flippers. Towards the end of the episode, the socialite went on to mention: “I’m goin’ for this cucumber, guys!” as she met up with Kim and Khloé and lamented the perils of being misunderstood by the public.

“Obviously, they wanted us to notice this. It’s a callback to the last season in The Kardashians episode that, technically, the timeline was taking place during the Astroworld tragedy—which was not acknowledged in the show,” Corey continued. “And the big moment of that episode was instead that Kendall cut a cucumber in a funny way, which people took the bait with that one.”

“A lot of you guys were asking me to speak on the cucumber incident—Cucumbergate—but there wasn’t much to say about it, besides the fact that perhaps we were baited to say things about it.” What’s more is that, in the said follow-up episode, an unopened bottle of 818 was placed with the plastic label wrap right on the lunch table and was featured in most scenes. Coincidence? I think not.

@kardashian_kolloquium

#kardashians #kendalljenner #kardashian #fyp #kim #kimk #kylie #popculture

♬ original sound - mj corey

“They need better writers. It’s too predictable,” a TikTok user commented under Corey’s video. “The fun of watching the show is finding all the ways they try to control the narrative!” another wrote, adding to the discourse that The Kardashians is essentially a walking brand deal in itself. “They’re going to release a line of cucumbers next for sure,” a third joked—at least I hope they were joking and not manifesting.

Fans over at Reddit’s r/KUWTK, however, seem to believe that Kendall was just stoned during the entire episode. “If you knew you were being filmed and were stoned, I could definitely see a momentary lapse of judgement for something you do normally 99.9 per cent of the time,” a user wrote, while others accepted the popular theory that the model is just “spoiled AF.”

Fast forward to 31 October 2022, the 26-year-old has officially ruined the alleged PR stunt by acknowledging it as a Halloween costume—kind of like when problematic actor Jared Leto discombobulated the “It’s Morbin’ time” joke by actually saying it out loud on Twitter. Presenting, Kendall the “cute-cumber,” here to “give out fruits and veggies” for trick-or-treating. If this is not the rotting cherry on top for the PR stunt, I don’t know what is.

https://www.tiktok.com/@kardashian_kolloquium/video/7160834922272427310?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1