TikTok video of Washington artist who entombed and buried Hot Cheetos near Tacoma goes viral

If all goes to plan, an archaeologist in the year 12,022 will open a buried sarcophagus on the Olympic Peninsula and find … a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

That’s the goal of a south Seattle artist who spent four months working weekends and at night to make a 3,000 pound concrete tomb for a solitary bag of spicy snacks.

King Tut’s tomb, this is not.

The step-by-step video the artist posted to TikTok and other social media platforms Saturday now has more than 21 million views.

So, why did he do it?

“That is the most common question I’ve gotten,” said the artist who goes by the pseudonym Sunday Nobody. Like the famously anonymous artist Banksy, Mr. Nobody doesn’t want his real name used in conjunction with his art.

Meme artist

Mr. Nobody, 28, works as an animator at an advertising agency by day. His off-hours are spent as a meme artist — somebody who makes art strictly for the internet.

“Meme art — that’s a millennial term,” the 28-year-old East Coast transplant said Monday. He calls his art wacky and quasi-engineering.

“It’s just for fun, just a hobby,” Mr. Nobody said. “It’s fun overcoming challenges and solving problems.”

His other projects, which can be viewed on his TikTok page, include a maze that he installed in Seattle’s Gas Works Park. When park goers solved the puzzle, it created the image of Barry B. Benson from the 2017 film “Bee Movie.”

There is no practical reason to his art. That’s by design.

“It’s sometimes nice doing something that doesn’t have a purpose,” Mr. Nobody said. “I don’t think every piece of art needs to have a great purpose. It can be just a silly idea that makes you giggle.”

A tomb fit for a bag of snacks

After constructing the tomb, Mr. Nobody preserved the snack-sized bag of Cheetos in resin, like an ant trapped in Cretaceous period amber.

He choose Cheetos as his artifact because of its meme potential, he said.

“If I had done it with Lay’s potato chips, I don’t think it would have struck a chord,” he said.

He then suspended the resin block in the middle of the otherwise empty tomb using cables.

The effect suggests some sort of mystical importance to the otherwise mundane junk food.

“My man is starting a religion in the future,” a TikTok commenter said.

“A future archaeologist assigning some meaning or value to an object which may be devoid of both is a funny idea to me,” Mr. Nobody said. He’ll just have to imagine the laughs, if they come.

“You have to wait a long time for that joke to pay off,” he said.

“I wonder if ancient (people) played pranks on us like this,” a TikTok commenter mused.

Reaction

People now, and in the future, are free to assign their own meaning, Mr. Nobody said.

“This is going to be in a museum on Saturn in 2245,” one TikTok commenter wrote.

As of Monday afternoon, the video had 16,200 comments just on TikTok.

“I try not to read the comments too, too much,” the artist said. “I got a job. I don’t have the bandwidth to read all those.”

He doesn’t like to think about all the views, either. He only knew the video had 21 million views after a reporter asked him to add them up across his various social media platforms.

“I try not to think about it,” he said. “I would have a coronary.”

Hidden location

Earlier this year, Mr. Nobody asked his Instagram followers if they had any property in Washington State that he could bury something on.

“I said, in parentheses, not a dead body,” he explained.

A couple somewhere on the peninsula responded. Like his own identity, he’s keeping their names and location a secret. All he’ll say is that it’s on the other side of the Narrows from Tacoma.

Mr. Nobody spent a day digging the hole for the sarcophagus. Finally, the property owner helped him with a tractor.

A stone laid at ground level reads, “Historical artifact buried below. Do not open for 10,000 years. Year buried 2022.”

If it plays out like he hopes, Mr. Nobody will be long gone by the time the sarcophagus is opened.

“It’s my supreme hope it lasts that long,” he said. “Will it? That’s up for debate.”

“I’m so mad that I’m not gonna be here in 10,000 years for the update,” a TikTok commenter said.

Up next

Engraved on top of the sarcophagus and embossed in gold leaf are the ingredients that go into a Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. The list is disturbingly long.

“Future humans will read one of the ingredients and be like ‘omg they ate this?’,” a commenter said.

Mr. Nobody is tight lipped about his next meme art project but said it will also be food themed.

“It’s a surprise,” he said. “All I can say is it involves a secret can of beans.” He would not elaborate.

It will, he said, have something else in common with the rest of his work.

“I just try to think about what would make my brothers and a few friends laugh,” he said.