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Unpacking TikTok’s Orange Peel Theory

What is this 'litmus test of true love'?

Click here to read the Spanish version.

This widespread trend on the platform is explored in a dual way in order to check the status of your relationship. That is, the strength of the couple based on the act of peeling an orange.

First of all, you need an unpeeled orange to test the experiment, which you will give to your partner/anyone and/or you hope to one day become one.

The receiver can then either peel it off without question, or, on the contrary, show ignorance. That response will become a reflection of true love. However, this test is not something new, it has been around for some time.

Its origins go back to the Orange Peel Theory based on that act of peeling oranges for your loved ones, documented in the poems of Wendy Cope and Jean Little. And ‘Golden Girl’, a song from Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange album, opened with the lines: ‘She peels an orange for us in the morning / Woke me up to give me half’.