What Is Bean Soup Theory? A Guide To The Internet’s New Narcissism Fetish

“But what if I don’t like beans?” has become the rallying cry of the most insufferable brand of self-centered social media users. This not-so-isolated incident has become patient zero for the modern “what about me” syndrome epidemic, or as it’s known more prolifically on TikTok, “Bean Soup Theory.” It’s not a theory, more like a behavior, but TikTok’s young demographic has a habit of throwing “theory” after any combination of words and calling it a day. This time, however, they have managed to pinpoint a profoundly problematic phenomenon that we certainly need to deconstruct and eradicate, lest we all lose our minds and the ability to engage in constructive conversation that leads anywhere.

So, what is the bean soup “theory” or controversy? It’s a generation-defining event. Everyone knows where they were when it happened. On an ordinary day in 2023, seemingly like any other, a vegan influencer named Kara uploaded a bean soup recipe to TikTok and made internet history. Innocently unaware of what was to come, Kara shared her high-iron bean soup recipe that she eats the entire week of her period for a good source of plant iron during menstruation. If that sounds niche, that’s because it is. There are a few points of hyperspecificity here: women who are vegan or open to trying vegan recipes, looking for high iron sources to eat during menstruation, and, of course, who actually like beans and soup. 

Well, imagine Kara’s surprise when the comments took a dizzying turn into “what about me” hyper-individualist brain rot. We may never know why this video attracted so many self-important solipsistic people, but it was so pronounced that it captured the attention of the entire internet, sparking video essays, dismayed TikTok responses from other creators, memes, and thoughtful sociological articles. The comments in question were a barrage of increasingly ridiculous hyper-specific questions like “What if I don’t like beans?” “What can I substitute for beans?” What if I don’t have low iron?” “What can I make if I don’t like soup?” all containing a presumptuous air of main character syndrome. 

Rather than openly demanding attention, they position themselves as misunderstood victims of exclusion, feigning confusion and anxiety.

Their questions implied an entitlement that content be tailor-made to suit their every preference and circumstance, even if doing so would make the content superfluous—such as asking for a substitute for beans in a bean soup recipe. Don’t make bean soup, then! The reactions were incredulous, and the creator unwittingly became the scene of a disturbing sociological phenomenon cited by countless internet historians, content creators, and journalists, citing this video’s comments as ground zero for the consequences of hyper-personalized algorithms. 

People now believe that because they scroll through videos on a “For You Page,” they really are the center of the universe; that every piece of content must be literally tailor-made for them, specifically. That video now has almost one million likes, 255k bookmarks, over 76k shares, and 13.4k comments. It’s by no means TikTok’s most popular video, but it’s perhaps the biggest splash a regular content creator has made without a pre-existing large platform or nepotistic last name.

In their video essay, The Take contrasts classic, loud, in-your-face narcissists with the subtler manipulation tactics of covert narcissists, who fish for reassurance through endless validation-seeking disguised as genuine concern. When confronted with content that doesn’t exactly reflect their personal experiences or preferences, covert narcissists crash out, demanding hyper-specific accommodations, like beanless bean soup. 

Rather than openly demanding attention, they position themselves as misunderstood victims of exclusion, feigning confusion and anxiety. “The covert narcissist seeks to flip the situation so that they’re not attention-seeking, but instead a victim attempting to right a grievous wrong. This also often comes as a part of a disingenuous attempt to use the existence of some marginalized group to justify their behavior,” like claiming they couldn’t help being three hours late without calling because they have ADHD. 

This concern-trolling often results in them talking over people who do experience those issues because the concern isn’t genuine. Even when creators bend over backward to acknowledge exceptions, these covert narcissists still find ways to frame themselves as victims, expertly flipping accountability into sympathy. Sound familiar? It should. Progressive internet discourse has been refining this technique online for years.

And while The Take (along with virtually every other content creator, journalist, and sociology-adjacent academic) is treating it like a jarring new personality disorder sprouting from TikTok comment sections, this kind of identity-first derailment has been part of liberal internet culture for over a decade. This is merely the mass adoption of an insufferable form of anecdotal absolutism and #NotAll-style rebuttal online social justice discourse that first arose in the mid-2010s on Tumblr and broke containment into the broader culture somewhere around 2014. 

This kind of identity-first derailment has been part of liberal internet culture for over a decade.

That’s when millennials who spent their formative years reblogging “and then everyone clapped” stories that never happened started entering the real world and holding it hostage with rigid demands around language, sensitivity, and identity-based moral authority. Suddenly, the new generation entering college universities was making increasingly uncompromising demands. What followed was a new coercive playbook: microaggressions, safe spaces, trigger warnings, mandatory pronouns, canceling or protesting speakers for having any shred of edge or heterodox opinions.

Faganchelsea, a content creator who shares financial advice on TikTok, called out this behavior after one too many unproductive exchanges on her videos. “I think it’s high time for some of you guys to admit that you do have a hobby, and it’s scrolling social media and being pedantic to strangers in comment sections.” In a video responding to yet another flood of “well actually” replies, she vented that no matter how carefully she caveats her content, even prefacing it with “this was personally helpful to me and might be helpful to you,” she still gets bombarded with comments insisting why it doesn’t apply to them. “Any helpful video on the internet is flooded with comments about why a person can’t do it, or it doesn’t apply to them,” even including the caveats she already listed.

Conservatives and right-of-center commentators have been calling out this rhetorical self-centering for years. We just had a different meme for it: #NotAll, mocking liberals who derail perfectly valid generalizations with statistically irrelevant personal anecdotes, involving the obligatory “well not all x are y” as if that’s saying anything. Ultimately, it’s the “not all” camp that brought you “what if I don’t like beans” on a bean soup video.

Libs, especially their more progressive fringes, proudly employed this derailment tactic to the point of normalization over the past 15 years, shifting the goalposts away from any central point by inserting hyper-specific exceptions. Now that it’s showing up in annoyingly apolitical ways, people find the behavior insufferable, not realizing many of them have quietly participated in this very behavior on a near-daily basis. 

I frequently see liberal commentators who, in one breath, condemn RFK Jr. for “fear mongering about autism” simply for pointing out the harsh realities of severe cases—citing their 14-year-old cousin Sammy, who’s some kind of math prodigy as evidence that autism-related struggles aren’t real—and in the next, turn around and criticize bean-soup style “what about me” syndrome. The call is coming from inside the house. If RFK Jr. wants to raise awareness about the real-world limitations of severe autism, then we aren’t talking about your little cousin Sammy, who just, like, really likes trains. Is that so complicated to internalize? Why does the political context suddenly make it impossible to maintain these standards?

It’s conservatives and anti-woke culture war commentators who’ve long railed against exactly this brand of covert rhetorical narcissism, which slyly redirects every conversation to niche personal circumstances, even though those circumstances rarely discredit the actual point being made. This habit pops up constantly in women’s health and fitness spaces, too, especially among eating disorder recovery influencers and anti-diet dietitians, who’ve formed a community around mutual, personal experiences with a hyper-specific problem, i.e., restriction, rigidity, and obsession. That must mean that anyone using these morally neutral tools—calorie tracking, weigh-ins, body checking, macro counting, “clean” eating, intermittent fasting, or niche diets like paleo or keto—will fall down the same problematic path.

Since identity and personal experience are king, they view these tools not as the blank slates they are but as inherently harmful for everyone, irrespective of context. It’s all conversational self-centering—demanding every piece of advice, every piece of content cater to their unique trauma, even if it doesn’t apply to the majority. This is the same mentality that brought us trigger warnings and safe spaces. Now, they expect the whole world to be their personal cocoon. 

I’m not here to point fingers and say, “You started this, so you can’t ever evolve,” but a little acknowledgment that this is the logical endpoint of a culture that spent years training people to center themselves in every conversation would be nice. Fruitful, even. Because the only real difference between the social justice discourse that migrated from Tumblr into mainstream culture over the past decade and the bean soup controversy is that it’s been stripped of its activist facade. What’s left is the bare skeleton of an infantile communication style that treats every generalization as a personal attack and every piece of content as an invitation to talk about yourself.