While BBQs and firework shows were the main events for many this past 4th of July, not everyone felt welcomed into the festivities of the holiday. Namely, a TikTok has been blowing up where a woman moved to a new town and her son’s friend’s mom invited the family to a 4th of July party. When she shows up with her homemade dish, the host greets her coldly, as one would a stranger. From there, a digital fallout ensues as the mom publicly condemns the hosts, the Hicks, describing their behavior as “mean girls vibes.” Shortly after, Jake and Stasia Hicks respond, and their videos of half-hearted apologies are quickly met with backlash.
What is the 4th of July cookout drama on TikTok?
The mom of the young kids who moved to a new town is TikToker @folkmedicineremedies — her real name has not been revealed for privacy purposes. She instigated the conflict by sharing her negative experience at a 4th of July party. Within hours, the video compiled millions of views and the attention of a large portion of the TikTok community. The mom shared in the initial video that she was “absolutely humiliated.”
According to her, she believed she was arriving at a neighborhood party. She wasn’t exactly sure who else was invited, as she had just moved to the area. She prepared an antipasto salad to bring and was in direct communication with the hosts leading up to the party, reiterating her gratitude for the invite and asking if there was anything else she could bring.
As she arrives with the salad with her son’s friend’s mom who gave her the invite, she recounts that her first intention was to introduce herself to everybody. But within minutes, the husband of the household — Jake Hicks — walked by her “kind of angrily.” The mom later heard that the husband had immediately walked out of the house after seeing her, “flipping out” about the stranger in his household.
According to the mom’s initial TikTok, Stasia, the mother of the household, reprimanded her for walking into a house where she didn’t belong or know the homeowners. The mom left distraught and felt that her treatment was absolutely unwarranted.
What was the response?
TikTok users who viewed @folkmedicineremedies’ initial TikTok quickly found Jake and Stasia Hicks’ accounts. A couple hours later, Stasia posted an insincere apology, and it was deleted 22 minutes after she posted it.
In the video, Stasia clarified that she is not a mean person and that she simply did not know the person who waltzed into her house. She also insisted that the event was a “gathering of people who knew each other,” not a party. She addressed TikTok users “trying to bully us,” reminding them that they don’t know the full story and were not there, so they are not qualified to have an opinion on the situation. Stasia also claimed that her husband had called to apologize, but that the mom did not accept his apology. Instead, according to Stasia, the mom just wanted to get on TikTok to get viewers to pile onto the hate train.
Stasia’s mother-in-law jumped into the equation, claiming that the mom exaggerated and made the whole story up. She reinforced the idea that it was a “cookout,” not a party. She said that the son was invited to the party, not the mom.
The original creator did post a video of the phone call between her and Jake — the “apology” phone call that Stasia had mentioned in her response video that she later deleted. The mom stood by her belief that her treatment was “completely irreparable,” while Jake claimed his actions came from a place of confusion from having a woman he did not know in his house. The mom insists that the couple was made completely aware that she would be coming, but Jake responds that he thought she was coming to drop her kids off. Jake said he doesn’t know why he woke up “to death threats.” The mom said in the phone call that she does not think “people should be attacking you.”
User @folkmedicineremedies posted another phone conversation between her and the woman who invited her, in which the mom who extended the invitation confirmed that the couple knew she was coming to the party.
The situation has even escalated to the point where the police are getting involved. Special Agent Jordan Sluss placed his card on @folkmedicineremedies’ car window, and when she called the number on the card, the agent immediately asked to speak with the TikToker’s husband to question the couple about making threats to the sheriff’s office. The two denied the accusations, and the truth of the situation spilled over into the comment section when the agent played the voicemail left at the station. The TikToker and her husband laughed at the situation because of how their voices differed from the ones on the audio the agent played, and couldn’t believe he thought it was them. Some commenters pointed to the voice being an impersonation by Jake Hicks.
TikTok users have taken a variety of positions on the conflict — some say that @folkmedicineremedies was way too visibly shaken in her videos to have made up the story, while others claim she drastically overreacted and exaggerated the experience for attention. Most commenters take the position that there was no need to greet this woman with as harsh of a cold shoulder as she got — walking into a party as the new neighbor is never easy, and there are simple rules of courtesy that should apply to hosting that the Hicks blatantly ignored.