An eight-year-old girl has become a TikTok sensation after brutally vandalizing an ice cream van that was selling two Screwball ice creams for £9.
Marnie, standing next to her identical twin sister Mylah in Burnley, Lancashire, says the seller is “not going to get anywhere” with prices so high.
The teenager tells his aunt Karis Lambert, who is filming: “So there is an ice cream truck that sells two ice creams with two pieces of chewing gum in them for a whopping nine pounds.”
Astonished and in a thick Burnley accent, she says that on her own street you can buy an ice cream for £1 or £2 a pop.
However, the cost isn’t the only thing that surprises Marnie.
She continues: “And he just makes bloody cards! Stood there with my money – damn it.”
Karis replies, “That’s bad, isn’t it?” Marnie agrees, adding loudly, “I bet he can hear me,” as she and her sister walk away.
The video, filmed in Towneley Park, has received 1.9 million views on TikTok and more than 30,000 comments, most of which found Marnie hilarious.
Several posters also agree that the ice cream flavors in question are quite expensive.
One of them, Lily, writes: “I agree with her, I wouldn’t accept 9 pounds either,” to which Karis, who posted the video, replies: “When it was about 9 pounds on the screen, I told her for her to do it. “You really want it, she said, not for that price, no, I’ll just grab one from the freezer when I get home,” followed by two crying, laughing emojis.
Many of the comments point out how much they like Marnie’s accent, while others say the girls look like Harry Potter star Emma Watson.
Karis later told the Lancashire Post: “Marnie was really angry and wanted to express it on Tik Tok and now it’s viral.”
She said of the sisters: “They’re a bit like Ant and Dec. Marnie speaks her mind, while Mylah can be a little quieter at times, but she’s the one who always comes out with the best one-liners.”
Although the video was posted as light-hearted fun, some ice cream sellers were distressed by the destruction, the Guardian reports.
One of them, John Taylor, whose C&M Ice van was named Mobile Device of the Year 2023, said rising costs had had a huge impact on ice cream van owners, meaning they had no choice but to do so to increase prices.
John told the newspaper: “It’s not just our industry.” All industries are in the same boat. The problem is that everyone perceives us as a cheap product.”
“Everyone seems to think that ice cream should cost 50p or £1,” which he said were 1970s prices.
“They are happy to pay four pounds for a lukewarm Starbucks coffee, but not a few pounds for a quality ice cream.”
He said several cost increases, including diesel, electricity, insurance, site fees and wages, had resulted in double-digit price increases for several years in a row.
John explained that ice cream truck owners don’t have the power of a supermarket that can, for example, buy 1,000 pallets of Magnums at a cheaper price.
He added that £4.50 for a screwball ice cream was at the top end of the market but not “unreasonable”.
Last year we took a closer look at the 99 Flake ice cream, which is not called 99 as many assume because it used to cost 99p
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