Another week, another man who has gone viral on TikTok for all the wrong reasons. Let’s talk about Pumpkin Guy.
Couch Guy was a defining moment on TikTok, a significant event that altered the timeline of the digital age and showed us the true potential of what the addictive clock app could truly be used for: trashing men who appear to be shitty partners. A delightful past time.
You’d think after all this time, men would have figured out that making disparaging comments about their wives for laughs is not cute. But Pumpkin Guy, the silly man, openly (and unthinkingly) shared his own shortcomings to the public, effectively offering himself up to the masses to be carved out and eaten alive. Who is this Pumpkin Guy, you ask? Well, let me explain.
Who is TikTok’s Pumpkin Guy?
Nathan Timmel (@ntimmel) is a TikTok creator, comedian, husband and dad who uploaded a video in November to TikTok in which he complained about his marriage. How original.
“Single guys, here’s what it’s like being married,” he began sardonically in the video.
He then proceeded to explain that his wife had sent him on an errand to pick up ingredients so she could make pumpkin bars for Thanksgiving. Crucially, however, he noticed she left out the main ingredient — canned pumpkin — from the shopping list.
Instead, Timmel said he tried to call his wife to determine if she had just forgotten to put pumpkin on the list, but she didn’t pick up and sent a text saying “can’t talk”. He tried again 10 minutes later, and when she still didn’t pick up, he left the store without the pumpkin.
He noted that while he knew he could have just bought some pumpkin anyway, he decided not to because if they already had some at home, then this can wouldn’t be used for another year.
Once in the car, Timmel’s wife texted him back and frantically decried that she’d forgotten to put the pumpkin on the list. She asked him if he could turn around and go get it. This is where things get bad for Timmel.
“She asks ‘Can you go back?’,” he said in the video.
“No! I called you. Twice. That was with purpose. You think I’m calling you to chit-chat? ‘Hey, Haven’t talked to you since breakfast, what’s up?’ No.
“Now my wife is mad at me, because she has to go to the store herself,” he complained, concluding with a sarcastic gesture of his hands to show how ridiculous marriage is.
How did TikTok react to the video?
Unsurprisingly, Nathan Timmel’s video went viral for all the wrong reasons.
“It’s like a dollar,” one person noted dryly, referring to the fact that buying the canned pumpkin should probably have been the obvious response to it being missing from the list.
“What a bad mindset to have,” wrote another.
Others didn’t like the implication that calling your wife to chit-chat is weird or unlikely, and some also found the caption of the video to be distasteful because it included comments like this one: “Anyway, marriage. The blessed union of two souls who fall truly, deeply, madly in love, and then ten years later (if they’re lucky), can’t stand the sound of one another chewing.”
Subsequent commentary videos pointed out that it would have cost zero effort for Timmel to just buy the can of pumpkin, instead of refusing to in what some perceived as a weird attempt to punish his wife for not picking up the phone.
It even led to a trend where women tested their husbands to see if they were married to “a pumpkin guy”, thus regarding Timmel as the litmus test for a shitty husband.
Jamieson Eileen (@jamiesoneileen), who is known for recapping viral videos of problematic men, made her own re-enactment of Timmel’s video in which she pointed out just how unreasonable the entire saga was.
“Nathan Timmel, my guy, it was never about the pumpkin,” she wrote.
“It’s about the fact that you identified a potential problem, and instead of spending $3 to mitigate it, you chose not to so you could shame your wife. And then further humiliate her by making a video as if she is insufferable for being upset at your inconsiderate choice. Methinks you just don’t like her.”
One TikToker in the comment referred to Nathan’s behaviour as “weaponised incompetence”.
Another questioned why Nathan didn’t know what was in his own pantry.
“Here’s the thing, why didn’t he know if they had pumpkin? My boyfriend knows generally what groceries we have because he lives here too lol.”
But really, it’s this comment that gets to the heart of it all: “He could have been a total hero and just bought the pumpkin but chose to be a dick.”
Did “Pumpkin Guy” apologise for his video?
Nathan Timmel uploaded an 8-minute long video in response to the backlash on his TikTok channel, in which he insisted the video had been “satire” and a “caricature”.
The response, which is not an apology video, slammed one TikToker specifically who had criticised his video, and bizarrely went on a rant comparing that TikToker to men who cheat on their wives, and also Bill Cosby and Woody Allen.
The video then progressed to criticise a “sassy relationship expert” who had called Timmel’s behaviour “toxic masculinity”.
Timmel pulled up a study that found Gen Z are more susceptible to scams and use this to explain the reactions of the “overly emotional” young people in his comments who got “worked up over a work of fiction”.
He then went on to describe himself as a “house husband” who does all of the cleaning, cooking, laundry and child-rearing at home.
“I am basically the husband all the angry women yelling at me wish they had,” he proclaimed, labelling his critics as “reactionary Karens”.
The rest of the video continues on this way, and ends with the argument that people are idiots for taking his video seriously.
Look, is there a point to be made about people on TikTok not always being able to tell the difference between what is real and what is a performance? Absolutely. Do people jump to conclusions on this app like it’s an Olympic sport? Also yes.
However, this year we’ve seen countless videos of men disrespecting their wives, in what is becoming a sad yet unintentional trend.
In a time where men, more often than not, are NOT “joking” when they make videos about how frustrating and insufferable they find their wives, I’m not surprised the Pumpkin Guy video got the reaction he did.
It’s a touchy subject, and women’s emotions being the butt of men’s jokes is tired and unfunny.
When are so-called comedians going to realise that the boomer-brand humour of punching down, especially regarding marriages and wives, is outdated and boring? Give it a rest.
