What is I Dropped My Hot Pocket?

It is a catchphrase pulled from a May 2016 local news interview in Blytheville, Arkansas, where resident Merrendes Jackson said he was so startled by nearby gunshots that he dropped his Hot Pocket.

Where did I Dropped My Hot Pocket come from?

Region 8 News aired the interview on May 12th, 2016, during a report on seven shootings in Blytheville, and YouTuber Susan Shanneil White uploaded the clip the next day.

What does I Dropped My Hot Pocket mean?

The line works through priority inversion, treating the loss of a microwaved turnover as the headline fact of a shooting report, which is why Vine editors reused it against rap beats and other dramatic audio.

How do you use I Dropped My Hot Pocket?

Edits typically splice Jackson's three-second quote into a music drop or a video of some unrelated calamity, often paired with hip-hop tracks like Snoop Dogg's 'Drop It Like It's Hot' or Kanye West's 'Monster'.

Is I Dropped My Hot Pocket still popular?

The clip is a classic 2016 Vine artifact rather than an active format; most of its viral traffic came in the weeks after the May 12th broadcast, with over 170 remixes posted under the #DroppedMyHotPocket tag by late May.

I Dropped My Hot Pocket

2016catchphraseclassic

Published October 22, 2026

During a May 2016 Region 8 News interview about a shooting spree in Blytheville, Arkansas, local resident Merrendes Jackson said he was so startled by the gunshots that he dropped his Hot Pocket. The tonal mismatch, mourning a microwaved turnover during a report on a fatal shooting, made it an instant Vine favorite. By mid-May, a remix pairing the audio with Snoop Dogg's 'Drop It Like It's Hot' had hit over three million loops.

vine memes tonal whiplash memes interview memes accidental fame memes catchphrase memes

Overview

Vine remixes isolate Jackson's deadpan delivery of 'I dropped my Hot Pocket,' often splicing the audio against hip-hop beats or sound effects for comic timing. Typical edits loop the moment on his face alongside a music drop, with a Snoop Dogg mashup and a Kanye West 'Monster' version among the earliest viral templates3.

The joke lives in priority inversion. Jackson recounts hearing seven shootings in his neighborhood yet grieves most audibly for the microwavable turnover he lost to the floor2. The clip's local news packaging, with the chyron and sober reporter voiceover, sharpens that mismatch and gives video editors material to cut against1.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Local TV news / Vine (viral spread)

Date

2016

On May 12th, 2016, Region 8 News, the local station serving Northeast Arkansas, aired a segment on a series of seven shootings that happened over 24 hours in Blytheville, including one that killed 34-year-old Jeffery Richardson on S. Lilly Street1. The report interviewed two local youths, Robert Moss and Merrendes Jackson, who had been inside a nearby house when the first shots went off. Asked how he reacted, Jackson said he was so startled he dropped his Hot Pocket, delivering the line with a straight face that made him the clip's centerpiece2.

The next day, YouTuber Susan Shanneil White posted a phone-recorded capture of the newscast to her channel, where it hit over 444,800 views in its first month4.

How It Spread

On May 15th, 2016, Redditor thatdudeman52 posted the clip to r/videos, where it collected more than 4,700 upvotes within a month3. A day later, Vine account viral shark media uploaded a six-second edit syncing Jackson's line to Snoop Dogg's 2004 single 'Drop It Like It's Hot,' which hit over three million loops and 79,000 likes in under a month3. On May 18th, Vine user lol adam posted a Kanye West 'Monster' remix that totaled around 290,000 loops.

Entertainment and food sites covered the quote the same week, with writeups on Bossip, WorldStarHipHop and Uproxx, plus food blogs First We Feast and Foodbeast. Twitter assembled a Moment playlist of notable Vine edits on May 17th, and Elite Daily ran a short piece joking about which flavor had been lost2. By late May, the tag #DroppedMyHotPocket on Vine had collected more than 170 user remixes3.

On May 31st, 2016, a Fox32 Chicago report on a storm that tore the roof off an apartment building in Willowbrook, Illinois produced a near-identical moment, when brothers Anthony and Niquan Kandler described the ceiling collapsing into their top-floor unit, drawing immediate comparisons from viewers who recognized the Blytheville format2.

Timeline

2016-05-11

Seven shootings happen over 24 hours in Blytheville, Arkansas, including the fatal shooting of Jeffery Richardson on S. Lilly Street.

2016-05-12

Region 8 News airs the eyewitness interview with Robert Moss and Merrendes Jackson, where Jackson says he dropped his Hot Pocket when the shots rang out.

2016-05-13

YouTuber Susan Shanneil White uploads a phone-recorded clip of the newscast, which gains 444,800 views in its first month.

2016-05-15

Redditor thatdudeman52 reposts the clip to r/videos, pulling in 4,700 upvotes.

2016-05-16

Vine account viral shark media posts the Snoop Dogg 'Drop It Like It's Hot' mashup, which hits 3M loops; Bossip, Uproxx and WorldStarHipHop pick up the quote.

2016-05-17

Twitter assembles a Moment playlist of notable Vine edits of the quote.

2016-05-18

Viner lol adam posts a Kanye West 'Monster' version that reaches 290,000 loops.

2016-05-31

A Fox32 Chicago interview with the Kandler brothers after a Willowbrook roof collapse draws comparisons to the Blytheville interview.

How to Use This Meme

Vine-style edits typically isolate the exact three seconds where Jackson says the line, then cut hard to a music drop or reaction clip. Common conventions include syncing the quote to a rap chorus, looping Jackson's face for emphasis, or overlaying the audio onto an unrelated calamity so the mourned object becomes something petty.