A pair of siblings have reignited a debate over cake — specifically, what it means to be a chocolate cake.
In December, Gia Cooper posted a video to TikTok, and later to Instagram, where the North Carolina resident passionately argues with her brother Quilez Cooper about the issue — and it went viral on both platforms.
“We’re having a debate in my home—,” Gia starts before her brother interjects.
“It’s not a debate!” Quilez shouts before they both share some very colorful language.
“So we’re having a debate at my home about yellow cake and chocolate icing,” Gia continues. “Everybody is saying that it’s chocolate cake, instead of yellow cake with chocolate icing. It is not a ‘chocolate cake.’”
As her brother shouts in opposition, Gia proposes that if she brings a yellow cake with chocolate icing to a party, the guests aren’t going to call that a “chocolate cake,” but her brother maintains that is, in fact, what that cake is.
“That is not a chocolate cake! A chocolate cake consists of cocoa,” Gia says.
Exasperated, Quilez claims that when people request something like a strawberry cake, they’re expecting the frosting to be strawberry-flavored.
In response, Gia says, “Maybe I want vanilla icing, so then I’ll say, ‘I want a strawberry cake with vanilla icing. I want a strawberry cake with lemon icing.’”
“That’s a lemon cake!” Quilez defiantly maintains.
“No, it is not!” Gia screams at the end of the clip.
Of course, on all the platforms it’s been posted, the video has stirred up plenty of discourse.
“I’m not sure if it’s considered a debate anymore 😂😂 this is a BATTLE,” said one TikTok user, and another added, “I felt your frustration through this video because it’s definitely still a yellow cake 😂😂.”
“he is loud and wrong– it is YELLOW cake!!” wrote someone else on TikTok.
“My dad calls it chocolate cake too and we argue about it every time! 😭,” said another person, and an X user proclaimed, “IT IS CHOCOLATE CAKE! 🗣.”
“if you put Nutella on toast is it chocolate bread?” asked a TikTok user.
“so if you scrape off the icing…what kind of cake is it??” wondered one person, and another replied, “Trash 😭.”
For Gia, arguments with her brother Quilez are just a cherished part of life.
“That was one thing that my mother did when we were younger,” Gia tells TODAY.com, sharing that during the summers, her mom would require the kids to research a subject.
“Every day, we had to pick a topic and what we were going to debate about,” she says. “We had to research said topic, and then at the end of the day, whatever time she chose, we had to debate on both sides.”
This explains why neither sibling backed down in the initial clip — or in a follow-up video, where both Gia and Quilez shout more arguments supporting their respective cases.
And this is not the first time this debate has popped up on the internet: For example, a tweet about the exact same thing went viral in 2021: A family was split on whether the flavor of a cake is based on the frosting or the actual cake base.
“I was keeping him updated throughout the entire process,” Gia says, letting Quilez know that most of the comments coming in were on her side. That concluded the debate in her mind — but not his.
