--- title: Here Is the Story Behind the Rice Wave Photo Making Waves description: Everyone is riding the wave of this wild rice wave photo. Learn the story behind the Tokyo fried rice Guys prank video. canonical: https://time.com/5513048/rice-photo-prank/ author: Ashley Hoffman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-01-25T15:07:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:57:06.565Z og:title: Here's the Huge Prank Behind That Crazy Rice Wave Photo og:description: People can't stop having fun with the memes og:url: https://time.com/5513048/rice-photo-prank/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2196630440da29c2/698943fcdb29874bd2261b7f/friedricewavephoto.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Directly Above Shot Of Veg Fried Rice In Cooking Pan og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's the Huge Prank Behind That Crazy Rice Wave Photo twitter:description: People can't stop having fun with the memes twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2196630440da29c2/698943fcdb29874bd2261b7f/friedricewavephoto.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Everyone's Riding the Wave of This Extremely Wild Rice Photo. Here's the Origin Story of 'the Wok Guy's' Huge Prank by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Jan 25, 2019 3:07 PM UTC  James Ronan / EyeEm—Getty Images/EyeEm by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Jan 25, 2019 3:07 PM UTC As you might have witnessed, a picture of a young man flipping a “massive wave” of delicious-looking fried rice in a pan took the [internet by storm](http://time.com/5205923/woman-wins-cotton-candy-eating-contest-internet-reactions/). The rice in the screenshot of a YouTube [prank video](http://time.com/5435824/fake-justin-bieber-burrito/) was totally artificial and totally marvelous to look at. People spent a good amount of time sharing the picture and came to the natural conclusion that the person in question was not really creating a wave of a rice, but it was great fodder. Affectionately called “the wok guy” on [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/photoshopbattles/comments/aia871/psbattle%5Fthis%5Fwok%5Fguy/), he explained in his video that it was all for the sake of a good laugh to begin with. YouTuber Kanta of Mizutamari Bond pulled off the prank to astound his partner Tommy, for their YouTube channel MTV Tokyo fried rice Guys. The clip will show that his unsuspecting collaborator Tommy was apparently in for quite the surprise when he walked into the kitchen. As for sculpting the solid fried rice “wave,” it cost roughly $4,000\. But you can’t put a price tag on shock value. The clip of the momentous cooking feat that never really happened been viewed nearly 6 million times as of Friday. And as for the picture, the collective minds of Twitter rode that wave as far as they could take it with the utmost creativity in the form of Photoshop transformations and memes. You can watch the makings of the everyone’s favorite new visual below. > [](https://twitter.com/YS%5FBOMB11/status/1087660396297764867) **Things got oceanic.** > [](https://twitter.com/royojo/status/1087840952914305024) **Tea time anyone?** **Is that the wok guy making a cameo in** **_Ratatouille_** **?** **James Harden made an appearance.** > [](https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1088272221158731777) > [](https://twitter.com/iStudying/status/1088744648347127808) > [](https://twitter.com/hanbeans%5F/status/1087675429027102720) The prankster did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5513048/rice-photo-prank/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5513048/rice-photo-prank/"},"headline":"Everyone's Riding the Wave of This Extremely Wild Rice Photo. 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