Is The Halal Snack Pack Dead? Google Says Yeah

As is the case with most of the trends the internet grabs hold of, it’s rare for them to stick around for any kind of long-term period of time. It’s usually a case of being chewed up and spat out as quick as the Yo-Yo trends of school days past.  
Of course, the biggest culture-cross-food phenomenon of late has to be the Halal Snack Pack (HSP). A deliciously greasy combination of hot chips, kebab meat and a combination of sauces (dealers choice), preferably wrapped up in a styrofoam container. Just ask Sam Dastyari, he fucking loves them.
The Snack Pack itself is nothing new. It first popped up in Sydney over 30 years ago and has been a staple of the Australian kebab shop scene and companion to the drunk idiot ever since. 
Artery clogging nonsense aside, the internet dug its big ol’ claws into the HSP in December 2015 when mates Luke Eagles and Ryan Durrington decided to start the Halal Snack Pack Appreciation Society Facebook (HSPAS) group. 
While getting balls deep into a delicious snacky, the pair wondered if they had stumbled upon the best HSP of all time. The ‘holy grail’, if you will. In an effort to find out just where the best purveyor of HSP‘s resides, they started the group which spread like absolute bloody fire. 
Since then, they have amassed around 170,000 members, spawning various memes and other internet related hilarities in their wake. But like all good (delicious) things, they must come to an end sooner or later. 
Has the Snacky‘s time come? We got Google to look into it for us. 
As you can see, interest peaked on the 3rd of July through to the 9th of July, directly after the Federal Election on July 2. Why? We reckon this video has a lot to do with it:
And if we chuck a look at the related queries, Pauline Hanson is up there with “HSP“, but don’t Google that unless you primarily want pictures of some pretty gnarly rashes. 
We also compared the search terms “halal snack pack” and “kebab” for good measure. Results make it clear that the all-time drunk favourite still reigns supreme, despite the surge in HSP queries. It’s gonna take a lot to knock that one of its perch. Also, who the hell is Googling “kebab” so much?
While the kebab holds the greasy food crown of Google, the HSP did actually overtake the search term “Big Mac” during it’s spike from the 26th of July through to the 6th of August.
While it might be a big call to say the HSP craze is dead, it certainly hasn’t retained the hype that the Federal Election brought with it. That’s right, the halal snack pack became a talking point while the entire country’s votes were counted. ‘Straya
I had a yarn with HSPAS co-creator, Luke Eagles, to get an idea of when the phenomenon hit peak hype for the group. He said that once high profile players got their hands on the idea, there was no stopping it. 
“I think the first public figure frothing on the HSP that got me hyped was Beau Ryan from The Footy Show,” he said.
“He does a segment called Beau Knows and I think 3 times now he has popped in to a kebab shop in the area he is reporting [in], or encountered someone else delving into a HSP and given it a quick rating while encouraging people to join the Facebook group. The first time was crazy, we had a huge influx of members join. We were so stoked to see it getting the double thumbs up on national tele.” 
The boys even made it onto Sunrise with a hella long line of HSPs in June.  
Andrew O’Keefe fkn LOVES a Snacky.
Although the initial rush of fans is long over, Luke says the group is still managing to pull in an average of around 5,000 new members each week. 
As far as his thoughts on the downfall of the Snacky go, he reckons it’s still pumping.
“The hype of “what is a HSP” has surely died down, but the HSP itself is well and truly alive and i believe it will stay that way,” he says. 
“Considering people are still frequently going out for a HSP alone or with friends, I would say the HSP is far from dead. Instead it now exists as something.”
Luke may be right, perhaps we are merely seeing the end of the “what the fuck is a halal snack pack?” era, with it now just existing as an accepted entry filed under pop culture. But now that everyone knows what it is, the question remains, will it continue to grow, or will it slowly shrivel up and expire? If this downward trend continues, things are looking grim. 
The HSP may be our last line of defence in a bloody war against Pauline Hanson. 
Photo: Toby Fisher.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At PEDESTRIAN.TV, we independently choose and write about stuff we love and think you’ll froth too. We have affiliate partnerships so we might get a bit of money from any purchase you make based on our recs, cool? Cool. FYI – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

More Stuff From PEDESTRIAN.TV