Popeyes Just Dropped A Hilarious TikTok Trolling Taco Bell's New Chicken Taco

Taco Bell just announced it is adding a Crispy Chicken Sandwich Taco to its menu this year, to compete with the wildly popular chicken sandwiches at Chick-fil-A and Popeyes (via The Washington Post). Taco Bell's entry into the chicken sandwich wars is only coming to two U.S. cities in March and won't go national until later this year. Even so, Popeyes wasted no time roasting Taco Bell's chicken.

When it comes to social media, Popeyes is usually thought of as a champion in the arena of fast food Twitter. To troll Taco Bell, however, the Cajun chicken chain decided to post a video on TikTok. (This might give Popeyes' TikTok account, with less than 12,000 followers, a chance to catch up to the chain's Twitter and its following of nearly a quarter of a million.)

Popeyes' TikTok video, posted Tuesday, Feb. 23, is a spoof on a popular TikTok trend: Fast food employees showing you something behind the scenes that their bosses might not want you to see. The video shows an employee, wearing an orange Popeyes T-shirt and orange face mask, looking over his shoulder to make sure he wouldn't get caught. The employee then demonstrates how to turn a Popeyes chicken sandwich into two tacos for Tuesday.

After buying the chicken sandwich and opening it up, Popeyes' TikTok video tells you to rub the two buns together, to spread the sauce. "Do it even though rubbing the two buns sounds so wrong," says TikTok's always-slightly-off "text to voice" function. Next, tear that breaded fried chicken breast in half, fold each side of the bun, and stuff each half breast inside to create something that resembles two tacos. In fact, they bear a striking resemblance to the new Taco Bell chicken taco.

But how can we be sure Popeyes is targeting Taco Bell? They don't mention their newest rival in the chicken sandwich wars, but there are some pretty big hints. Each of the six steps in the Popeyes taco hack is enumerated in Spanish: step uno, step dos, etc. And in step cinco, you're supposed to wedge those pickle slices into your Popeyes tacos, too. Now the taco looks a lot like the Taco Bell version, which can come with sliced jalapeños. "Garnish with the pickles because they're jalapeño's first cousins," says the automated voiceover. The voice has a lot of trouble with Spanish. It calls those spicy peppers "jalopy-o's."

Popeyes' latest social media hit piece does a good job of maintaining the chain's reputation as one of the best online trolls in the fast food game. We're just worried customers are going to crowd the drive-thrus next Tuesday to order tacos.