Screaming Sausage Videos Are Here to Ruin Your Breakfast

The first and only time I ever ordered a whole lobster was when I was 17 years old. On the night of my prom, I climbed in a rented limo with my best friend Megan and went to the fanciest restaurant in our area, an overpriced little seafood restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland. After I happily ordered a crustacean to feed my fancy prom desires, Megan widened her eyes.

“What?” I asked, as I put on my lobster bib. Megan replied to me what seemed obvious to her, that the animal was most likely alive before I ordered it, and would obviously die “right over there” in the kitchen as we were talking about it, and knew me enough to know I might not like that information. (I certainly did not, but I still ate the lobster. It was $60.)

That not-so-fond memory came shrieking back to me when I learned of the internet’s baffling new trend of screaming sausage videos.

Yes, you read that right.

In a YouTube video posted on Monday, September 24, a pan full of sausages can be seen being fried, but in addition to the familiar sizzle those little brown beauties usually make, an additional cluster of scream-like noises come from those same links. (Horrifying.) Maybe that movie Sausage Party was actually real?

The video, which I’m pretending sounds like a group of mice on an itty-bitty rollercoaster, garnered just over 1,000,000 views in only four days. The same person posted the video on Reddit under the aptly monikered user name Imjustkidding, where the video received an additional 55,600 upvotes.

Oddly, this is not nearly the first time the phenomenon was posted online to the delight, laughter, and horror of those on the World Wide Web. The earliest existing video of “screaming” (or “scared”) sausages was posted on July 6, 2009, by YouTuber Vincent Lloyd. While this video only has 132 views, it is 1,320% more horrifying to listen to than Imjustkidding’s more recent capture.

Like other phenomena on the internet that seem to catch on with little rhyme or reason, screaming sausage videos are quite popular, and if you search YouTube, there are tons these yelling-meat videos to watch. Whatever makes you happy, I guess?

If you’re wondering why sausages make that screaming, shouting, whistling noise when you cook them, food scientist Stuart Farrimond recently studied the noises sausages make (yes, he really did). The British researcher noted the decibel levels produced by sausage recipes dating back all the way to 1845. In addition to finding out that 19th-century Kentish sausages were the loudest at 78 decibels (about as loud as an alarm clock), he noted the reason certain sausages make more noise than other ones.

“Many people assume that it is fat that causes sizzling, but this is not the case,” Fairmond told website Extra Crispy in an interview. “Moisture within fat tissue can cause sizzling, but not the fat itself: add butter to a hot frying pan and it doesn’t sizzle, but spray some water in and it does!”

So when you’re cooking your breakfast and are taken aback by a little shriek, just think of your sausages like you think of a whistling tea kettle telling you that it’s ready. Perhaps it won’t feel so jarring. At least, I’d like to think so.