BERLIN - On Sunday afternoon, despite intermittent rain, more than 1,000 young Berliners gathered at a park to engage in the latest social media-driven activity now sweeping around the world: eating pudding, in public, with forks.
"I had FOMO," said Jette M., 22, speaking German but using the now-globalized English abbreviation for "fear of missing out," as she forked chocolate pudding into her mouth. "I was afraid to miss it, because I found it funny."
The craze is called "Pudding mit Gabel," or "pudding with fork," and it is, well, exactly what it sounds like.
Jette, who spoke on the condition that her full name not be used even as she engaged in public pudding exploits, had heeded a call on TikTok to come to James Simon Park, on the north bank of the Spree River in central Berlin, bearing a fork and a container of pudding.
She was among many thousands of Gen Zers across Germany - and now well beyond its borders - who have bought into the trend that's taken off exponentially on social media in recent weeks.
There's no central organization. No money changes hands. Someone with a formidable following posts the time and place on TikTok or Instagram, and the masses show up.
The events are BYOP and BYOF. And even on a Sunday, when German stores and supermarkets are closed, everyone comes prepared.
At the appointed time - it was 3:30 p.m. Sunday at Berlin's first iteration of the trend - someone starts a countdown. This being Germany, the start times are extremely punctual. Everyone peels back their foil lids and takes out their forks, and the slightly clumsy pudding-eating commences.
"I thought it was a little dumb to do this, but I wanted to see how many people would come," Jette said. "We thought maybe no one would come, but I think we underestimated Berlin, where there are always people."
The first Pudding mit Gabel took place in the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe, best known as the site of the country's Supreme Court, in late August. Evidently, young people across Germany thought it was a tremendous idea. Within weeks, there were pudding fests in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Munich, Hanover and other cities and towns.
Vivi, 27, a Berlin resident who is originally from Karlsruhe, said she felt compelled to represent her city at the first Pudding mit Gabel event in Berlin after she heard about it on TikTok. She came with two friends, all attempting to scoop chocolate pudding with their tines.
"I think it's very German humor," Vivi said.
"Also, we're both unemployed, so we have time," her friend Robin, 21, added.
The pudding-eating started quietly, with the crowd - median age: roughly 21 - forking and chatting in groups of three or four. Then someone set up a three-foot-high speaker and started blasting techno. A few people lit joints. Others popped beers.
A huge crowd swarmed around someone dressed as Duo the Owl, the Duolingo mascot, with an oversize soft gray fork. Many strained to take selfies with the green bird.
The trend spilled beyond Germany with a recent pudding event in Vienna, and has now crossed the Atlantic. On Saturday, D.C. musician Nataly Merezhuk put out a call on Reddit for a gathering the next day.
"Hey fam!" she wrote. "We're eating pudding with forks at Logan circle this Sunday at 4PM, the point is to eat slow and make new friends."
She added, "It's a German thing."
This being D.C., Merezhuk made a website for the event, puddingintheparkdc.com.
On Reddit, someone suggested expanding to general sweets. "This is German," another poster replied. "There are rules." Someone else simply proclaimed: "TAPIOCA."
People came to Logan Circle with rice, almond, chocolate and banana pudding, Merezhuk reported, but "lots of people didn't find pudding and brought yogurt instead."
Last week, the official TikTok account of Boston's Northeastern University posted a video of students gathered on a lawn eating pudding with forks, with captioned: "DeutschTok, consider this our application." The gathering appeared to include only a handful of students, plus a husky mascot. New Yorkers, ever late to the party, are organizing a Pudding mit Gabel event on Oct. 19 in Central Park.
But pudding with forks? Why? Some have suggested the goal is to build community, and make new friends, a slippery grasp for togetherness, in a world that seems increasingly fractured.
Among those enthusiastically gathered in Berlin on Sunday, no one could supply a clear answer.
"It's a little random that we are here," conceded Phillip Schmoker, 21, who was visiting Berlin from Bonn (but not, he was quick to add, specifically for the pudding event). He saw the callout on Instagram, he said, as he ate cherry pudding with two Berlin friends forking chocolate.
"We thought it was kind of funny that someone had the idea to do it," Schmoker said, "and we thought, 'Why not?'"