"IceTok" is *insane*

Some background: I'm a baker/candy maker (previously professional, now just for family and friends) and have accumulated a handful of silicone molds over the years, mostly for chocolate making. When I freeze things like stock, leftover coffee, etc. I'll often use them because I already have them rather than going out and buying ice cube trays. But that means some of the stuff in my freezer is in 'odd' shapes, puzzle pieces, hearts, candy bars, skulls, whatever I happened to grab.

Had a friend over last night and when she went to get something out of the freezer, she noticed the containers of shaped frozen stuff and made a comment like 'what, are you an ice influencer now?' She was joking but we started talking about them and man, I did not know the depths of this! I'd seen a video or two of people making fancy ice but I'd never seen some of the stuff she showed me. Whole freezers just for ice. People with dozens of different molds for every holiday and season and theme. People with freezers full of ice plus 2 or 3 counter top ice makers on top of it. Adding glitter and flowers and food coloring and god knows what else to ice just to then put it in their Stanley cups where you can't see it anyway. And of course every mold and container and scoop and cup they use is linked in their Amazon storefront so you don't have to worry about your ice being off-trend.

And on top of all that, apparently when tiktok was going to be banned a bunch of these influencers came out and said they never used the ice! They'd make the videos then dump it all so they could put their actual food back in the freezer. How did we get this far into consumerism that ICE is being commodified and influenced??