Dunkin's Play On #Shortkingspring Is Racking Up Instagram Comments
If the term "short king spring" confuses anyone, don't worry. Here is an explainer. "Short kings" is an established term of endearment for people under 6 feet. In 2019, The Guardian wrote how it came about as both an appreciation for shorter actors like Tom Holland as well as a reaction to the arbitrary size requirement that excludes many men on dating apps.
This appreciation has joined with the trend of branding seasons with branded identities, such as hot girl summer, sad boi fall, and the winter of discontent dukes. Bustle reported on March 30 that this year's Oscars which featured shorter men like Tom Holland and Joe Jonas spurred an interest in similarly sized men on TikTok. Voila! Short king spring.
So, the social media team for Dunkin' did what social media teams are supposed to do then. It read the room and jumped on a trend in a clever manner. In doing so, it may have won the internet.
Hail to the short king
Whoever manages Dunkin's social media team can feel good about how their week started. Yesterday, the company made a post on Instagram that, as of this writing, has elicited over 40,000 likes and over 5,000 comments.
The post is pretty simple. It's a picture of a small coffee cup with a straw that is comically too large for it. Over the coffee in all lowercase lettering, were the words, "heard somewhere it was short king spring." Then, in the description, the team commanded all who saw the post to tag the Napoleon Bonapartes in their lives. "Hahahahahaha," one wrote, "this is ICONIC." Another agreed, requesting in all caps that Dunkin' should "GIVE THE SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER A RAISE."
However, a big part of the enjoyment was due to where Dunkin' decided the post was located: "Southie (aka South Boston)." "You did not tag the location as southie," Colton Bradford of NBC Boston stated despite the evidence that Dunkin' indeed did. Whether the appreciation is due to Dunkin' using Boston slang or to the idea that everyone from Southie is short is not clear.