The joke rides on the gap between the phrase and whatever the poster attaches to it. The actual 5 Gum spots showed chewers wired to sensation machines and drifting through vivid dreamlike scenes meant to sell the gum as a full-body sensory hit1. The meme flips that framing, using the same tagline to caption mundane, painful, or completely random footage as if it deserved the same kind of over-the-top reaction3.

Image macros usually slap 'how it feels to chew 5 gum' over reaction images, screenshots, or GIFs where a character looks blissed out, stunned, or in mild pain. Video parodies follow the same rule, dubbing the tagline over unrelated clips or restaging the ad's format with a deliberately underwhelming payoff2. The gag holds up because the original commercials were exaggerated enough that any absurd reaction fits under the caption.

A common convention is to caption a reaction image or short video with 'how it feels to chew 5 gum' whenever the pictured reaction looks disproportionately intense3. Posters typically pick clips where a character looks ecstatic, wrecked, or in over-the-top pain, using the tagline as a punchline that nods to the 5 Gum ad's absurd energy.