'it is such a gen z thing' people meet up to eat puddings with a fork for tiktok trend

Pudding mit Gabel swept Germany and is now taking on the UK(Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

In an era where social life has migrated online,Gen Z are finding new ways to connect – even if it’s over a pudding pot.

The London ‘fork meet-up’ (a loose offshoot of Germany’s viral ‘Pudding mit Gabel’ gatherings) was small,strange and strangely sincere.

Participants said they came not for pudding,but for ‘a sense of community,’ a theme increasingly echoed across Gen Z digital culture.

The craze began when a flyer inviting strangers to eat pudding with a fork in a park in Karlsruhe,south west Germany,was spotted online.

The group assembled with pudding pots and forks in hand (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

German youths have been invited to attend local parks with a fork and a pudding pot (Picture: Reddit)

The idea soon spread like wildfire,with thousands of youngsters meeting in cities and towns throughout Germany and Austria,such as Hamburg,Hanover,Vienna and Berlin.

It made its way to the UK when marketing agency Lasting Lemons put out an appeal on TikTok for strangers to gather at Leicester Square.

This generation of fork-munchers are clear they are hope the meet ups will fuel new social connections.

Student Hope Lewthwaite,22,finished eating her Alpro vanilla custard pot with a fork before telling Metro: ‘We just wanted to socialise. It is a nice third space,which we don’t have any of anymore.

‘You can meet people without having to actually put a lot of money into it.’

Friend Ella Murray,also 22,also came with her from SOAS university to meet new friends in London.

Why are a bunch of twenty-year-olds in the busiest city on Earth relying on silly stunts to make new pals?

To get the latest news from the capital visit Metro's London news hub.

Ella Murray (left) Hope Lewthwaite (right) came to meet new friends (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

Some were convinced that spoons were the way forward (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

The truth is that Gen Z appears to be the loneliest generation ever. As many as 73% report feeling alone sometimes or always.

While the rise of social media has left us all more interconnected,its also been accompanied with a collapse in opportunities for Gen Zers to interact face-to-face.

More than 600 youth centres have shut as funding for them was slashed 73%,a YMCA report revealed in January.

This closures have pulled young people further apart.

Research shows that after a youth club shut down,teenagers spend less time doing homework and more time playing video games and on social media.

It’s not just youth centres either,people are spending less time with other humans at work too.

The pandemic brought about a revolution in hybrid working – where employees can work from home some days of the week.

During the pandemic,the greatest increase in people adopting a hybrid work pattern came from the 16-34 age bracket.

Working from home can also fuel loneliness. A Gallup study in the US found that 25% of remote employees felt lonely daily,whereas that number was only 16% for those fully in the office.

Germans Salma and Maria were gutted they were in London when the trend blew up back home (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

The Pudding mit Gabel events are attracting hundreds in Germany (Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)

The largest contingent at the Leicester Square fork-a-thon were Germans.

They said the reason Pudding mit Gabel was so popular back home is because Gen Z were treating this new form of social interaction almost as an act of rebellion against the rise of isolation.

Au pair Salma Bilici told Metro through bites of a Dairy Milk chocolate pot: ‘People yearn for community and want to meet other people as well. Even through pudding with a fork.

‘German youngsters want to oppose the norm and oppose the system,that is why a lot of young people go.’

New pal Hannah,who is visiting London on her travels,had not eaten dessert for 10 years before the ‘Pudding mit Gabel’ hype blew up.

She said one of her friends got so excited that they made a two-litre tub of pudding and brought it to one of the gatherings in a park in Cologne.

It was unavoidable to conclude that 20 people sitting in a circle in Leicester square was hardly going to stop the corporate giants from accelerating the growth of social media.

But an hour spent without scrolling TikTok and actually talking to someone new did feel like a rebellion of sorts.

Perhaps only something as silly as eating pudding with a fork was going to make that possible.

Lucy Josephs had to persuade boss Charly Gillespie Smith that holding the event would be a good idea (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

Metro reporter Luke gave the trend a try (Picture: Justin Griffiths-Williams)

During a lighthearted hour sat on the Leicester Square green,the only point of tension which erupted was over the definition of a pudding.

The German contingent were clear: ‘Pudding is liquidy and jiggly,with the cream on top. It is not yoghurt,’ Maria said.

As for the chocolate mousse brought along by Metro reporter Luke,that was derided as not a pudding in the slightest.

That didn’t stop him tucking in with a fork,with the Sainsbury’s dessert going down a treat.