The TikTok Butter Hack That'll Totally Upgrade Your Movie Theater Popcorn

Grabbing a bucket of popcorn to munch on is an essential part of the moviegoing experience. Though theaters often sell their popcorn pre-salted and buttered, many also offer stations where patrons can continue to customize their food by adding some extra butter or popcorn seasonings. But when you sit down to watch the movie and grab that first handful of your snack, it can be upsetting — and even a little gross — to get a handful of soggy popcorn, soaked through with melted butter.

Fortunately, one TikTok user seems to have found a hack to avoid this problem. AdventuresWithColleen showed a video of herself at the movie theater, inserting a disposable plastic straw into the center of the popcorn bucket. She carefully moves it down until it touches the bottom, then lines the straw up directly below the butter dispenser. She then fills the straw up with butter so that she can move it around, distributing the butter throughout the entire bucket.

@adventureswithcolleen

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Some people in the comments section of the TikTok video suggested that there may be an easier way to achieve this. Quite a few commenters shared that when they order popcorn at their local movie theater, they actually ask the concession stand attendant to add a layer of popcorn, add some butter, and repeat the process until the entire bucket is full. This method ensures that the popcorn will be evenly buttered without wasting a plastic straw.

However, Colleen, the original poster, replied to one of these comments, stating that her local theater won't accommodate the special request. Instead, she discovered the straw trick as a way to get around it. One TikTok user commented that they've used the trick before, too, but they actually use three different straws spaced around the popcorn bucket. This prevents the butter from seeping too much into the center of the bucket, ensuring that all sides (and kernels) are covered.

Despite the traction this hack has been gaining over on TikTok, it's actually been around, much like popcorn, for a quite while. One comment on the video points out that the Netflix show "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" actually showed one of its characters doing this Season 2, Episode 11 of the show. Colleen herself admits in a comment that she's been utilizing this method since the early 2000s.

Still, some commenters on the video noted that this method may not work for theaters that use thin paper bags for popcorn. A few TikTok users shared that they had tried this method, but the oily butter soaked through the bottom, making a mess of their clothes and the floor. To remedy the situation, other commenters suggested holding the bottom of the bags with an abundance of napkins, or asking the movie theater employees for a tray to hold the bags on.

While it's not completely clear who the real inventor of this trick is, at least we now have a way to achieve perfectly buttered popcorn at the theater.