Gran vs Scran: viral post proves food for thought
Everyone loves their gran – and in one Amble lad’s case, 24 million people do too. A light hearted post about the size of a dessert has gone viral on TikTok, and sparked an idea to help promote local hospitality venues.
📷 Mike Cooper and his gran, Joan Colligan
Earlier this year, Mike Cooper from Amble took his beloved grandmother Joan out for a treat – a supersize chocolate éclair. Seeing her shocked expression at the size of it, Mike filmed her and posted it to his Tik Tok account.
Mike has lived in Amble all his life, and now teaches at Newcastle College. His gran Joan Colligan is originally from Heddon on the Wall, but loves Amble and spends a lot of time here.
“She’s got a sweet tooth,” Mike told The Ambler, “but she was shocked at how big the éclair was. Her expression was so funny I had to video it.
“LADBible picked up the post and then the views just shot up. A few days later I went on a trip to Australia. I was there about a month, and even the tour guide had seen it.”
Mike’s post has now had over 24.1 million views and 4.3 million likes on TikTok alone.
Since then, Mike and Joan have visited other restaurants and Joan’s hilarious expressions at the size of the huge platefuls of food has made people laugh all over the world.
“Everyone loves my gran. We’re recognised all over now, and restaurants are asking us if we will do a piece with them. I started out with 30 followers on my TikTok account, now it’s over 10,000.”
This gave him the idea to start the ‘Gran vs Scran’ TikTok show, which he hopes will help local eateries with publicity, and he is intending to start up a hospitality consultancy business soon.
“And I hope the videos will inspire others to take their gran out too!”
You can see Mike and Joan’s hilarious posts on his TikTok page: @mikecooper85
Anna Williams
