A fake Charli XCX ‘Brat’ Erewhon smoothie went viral thanks to a Pop Crave tweet and a spoof TikTok

On the heels of Charli XCX’s new album, Brat, pop culture aggregator Pop Crave posted about a new collab smoothie between the singer and boutique grocer Erewhon.

There was just one problem — it wasn’t real.

Pop Crave tweeted to its nearly 2 million followers last week that the “Brazilian matcha lemonade smoothie” was available at Erewhon locations for $31. It included a photo of the green-hued drink, a screenshot from the announcement’s original source: Daniel Preda, known as @misterpreda on TikTok.

Preda uses his TikTok account to review smoothies and other beverages around Los Angeles regularly, so it wasn’t far-fetched that the drink was legit. But after closing his review, the video cuts to black and the TikTok keeps rolling. That’s where he comes back into focus and reveals the concoction was his own “imaginary collaboration.”

“I’m a huge fan of Charli XCX and was blasting the BRAT album and an idea came to mind so I ran to the grocery store at 11 p.m. and got into my test kitchen,” Preda said. “What I’ve learned from TikTok is that the majority of people don’t have a three minute attention span, and that’s on the viewer, not me.”

As first reported by the Southern California News Group, Preda’s fake review took off, causing fans who didn’t quite reach the end to head to Erewhon to try the drink for themselves and pop culture social media accounts to spread the word. Following the spoof’s traction, L.A. based smoothie and juicery Moon Juice announced it would partner with Preda to bring his “Bratty Summer” drink to life. Still, the media snafu illustrates a larger trend where younger generations are relying on nontraditional platforms like TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) to get their news.

Pop Crave’s tweet about the faux smoothie was viewed more than 160,000 times before the account deleted the post. But unlike more traditional news outlets, which will disclose errors and issue corrections, Pop Crave didn’t address the misinformation at all.

Experts say the rise in popularity of accounts like Pop Crave, Pop Base, and Pop Tingz — along with the willingness to accept their posts as fact — is cause for concern because the outlets lack the same accountability as traditional news outlets.

These accounts rely heavily, sometimes almost exclusively, on anonymous and unvetted sourcing. They’re also increasingly covering politics, Vox reports, making for a slippery slope when it comes to blindly reporting on something like a fake boutique grocery smoothie to a QAnon conspiracy theory.

When the accounts do base their posts on other news outlets’ work, they often fail to credit the original source. Their posts can also lack important context and become confusing. The authors behind the posts are typically anonymous. Several of the outlets also run sponsored content without disclosing a paid post, raising questions about bias and legitimacy. Pop Crave ran a sponsored post last year with the text “BREAKING: UFOs and Aliens confirmed to exist” that ended up being an ad promoting the singer Melanie Martinez.

It’s not the first time Pop Crave has quietly deleted a post without explanation or reported on misinformation.

Last year, when a fake (later reported as hacked) Instagram post from Lil Tay’s Instagram account said the young rapper died, Pop Crave was early to report the bogus death. Journalist Joel Penney, who focuses on the intersections of pop culture, politics, and news, said the death hoax served as a warning about media literacy.

“A key cornerstone of media literacy education is to always check the source of a news story to determine its credibility,” Penny said in a column about misinformation surrounding Lil Tay. “Younger generations are potentially being groomed to do the opposite. That should alarm everyone.”

Pop Crave didn’t respond to a request for comment as of publication time.

Preda wasn’t surprised to see Pop Crave fall for his video.

“I attended Northeastern University for Journalism and Film and if I learned anything, media literacy is very important and very rare,” Preda said. “I wouldn’t suggest getting news from an internet tabloid that capitalizes off of social media for clicks and retweets without doing their homework.

He added, “Read entire articles and watch videos through, I promise you’ll survive babes!”