People Are Dragging the Family Behind the Viral Turkey Trot Prank

There’s a family going viral on TikTok not for the hospitality they showed to the fiancée of one of their family members, but for the complete opposite. Instead, they’re going viral for a “little” prank they decided to pull on her, one that didn’t exactly elicit the response they were hoping for, either from her or the internet, especially after they decided to share it on TikTok.

The Butler family, the ones at the center of this viral moment, told the soon-to-be in-law that they’re “intense” Turkey Trotters and run several miles every Thanksgiving (but they don't). A video of the prank playing out was later posted, and the fiancé’s response is utterly priceless. Here’s the gist of the Turkey Trot family prank that is unfolding on TikTok, and why so many people are now weighing in, which presumably led the original poster to delete the video and go private.

So the Butler family is getting absolutely battered online because of a prank they pulled on a member’s fiancée. Apparently, one of the sisters told her brother’s fiancée that every year at Thanksgiving, they run a 10K for the Turkey Trot. To put that into perspective, a 10K is 6.2 miles. For even more perspective, one mile is just over 17 football fields. You do the math.

So this woman is told the family she’ll soon be joining are avid runners, and presumably she starts prepping for this big run, because no person, especially a non-runner, can just knock out a 10K without some level of training. We don’t know the extent of her preparations, but it’s safe to say she did something.

Turns out, the family was lying about the whole thing.

They aren’t Turkey Trot runners, and they certainly weren’t running a 10K for Thanksgiving. So when the “race day” came, the sister gathered everyone for a group photo in their custom shirts made for the “run,” and since the fiancée was the newbie, she had to wear a silly tutu and a turkey hat. As they posed for the picture, one of the sisters said, “One, two, three, we’re kidding!” and another voice in the background clarified, “There’s no race.”

The fiancée’s reaction was borderline shock, and after it sank in that it was all a prank, it almost looked like she went into a moment of internal panic, like she was thinking, “Oh my god, all those weeks of training and days at the gym were for nothing?!” Viewers can’t tell if she was actually in shock, crying on the inside, or both. And what makes it worse is that it looks like she even went out and bought a pair of Hoka running shoes, which aren’t cheap.

Now, the original video of the prank, shared by TikToker Parksyyyyy, has since been removed or hidden, and her account is now private. Luckily, TikToker @hmcruc2 snagged a recording before it vanished, so everyone could see how the prank played out. And while the prank might have been harmless if they had told her it was just a mile run, telling her it was a full 10K is just excessive.

As you can imagine, basically all of the commentary coming out from viewers on this Turkey Trot prank supports the fiancée who was pranked. But based on her reaction, it’s also prompting some, like Instagrammer @pattypopculture, to suggest it almost felt more like hazing than a joke.

She clearly looked like she had prepared for something she didn’t exactly want to participate in, but would do anyway because it was supposedly a family tradition. And the training she likely put herself through to get ready for it was probably a lot.

Naturally, there were a lot of people telling her to "trot" away from this family.