Korean influencer's 'Baseline' mispronunciation goes viral, Vaseline reacts

After a Korean influencer pronounced Vaseline as Baseline in a viral Instagram video, the brand adopted the joke in a mock rebrand. The response turned a pronunciation meme into a playful reflection on how the product is adapted across places and accents.Korean influencer’s ‘Baseline’ mispronunciation goes viral, Vaseline reacts (Photos: @mindaylee_/Instagram)A South Korean influencer’s simple mispronunciation of Vaseline has now become a full-blown internet trend, with the skincare giant itself joining in and announcing a tongue-in-cheek “rebrand” to Baseline.Min Day shared a video on Instagram in which she showed viewers the Vaseline products she owned. In the clip, she brought out every product she owned, continuously calling them "Baseline" products.Watch the video here:What might have been an ordinary pronunciation slip, however, turned into a viral moment. The video racked up more than 36 million views, with viewers picking up on the “Baseline” pronunciation and turning it into a meme. However, in a different video, she explained why she pronounced “Vaseline” as “Baseline," a pronunciation linked to the difficulty of producing the “V” sound in Korean, where it can be pronounced closer to a “B” sound.Watch the video here: Soon, social media users began referring to the familiar petroleum jelly brand as “Baseline”, repeatedly using the altered name in comments and posts. The joke spread so widely that it eventually caught the attention of Vaseline itself.And instead of correcting the pronunciation, the brand decided to play along.In a post, Vaseline issued a mock “official statement” announcing that it was embracing the internet’s version of its name.The brand jokingly declared that, following an “extensive review," which it clarified essentially meant watching one viral video, Vaseline was now “Baseline” with immediate effect.It added that the product itself remained exactly the same, from the tub to the jelly, with only the first letter changing depending on how the name was pronounced around the world.The post then took a more heartfelt turn, pointing out that Vaseline had been “pronounced, adapted, and made local” in different parts of the world for around 150 years. The brand said every accent and variation was ultimately a reflection of how far the product had travelled.Vaseline also gave Min Day credit for the viral discovery and jokingly appointed her CEO of Baseline, saying she got the position without even having to attend an interview.Take a look at their post here:The brand's playful response came after social media users had spent days turning Min Day's pronunciation into a running joke, with the company essentially deciding to make the meme official.The brand’s decision to embrace the joke amused social media users, with several saying they never expected “Baseline” to become part of their vocabulary in 2026. One person jokingly said “Baseline and Voroline” were not on their 2026 bingo card.Others celebrated Min Day’s sudden rise to meme fame, with one commenter calling her the “Tok Tok girl” and congratulating the newly formed “Baseline community”.Many viewers also found the brand’s response unexpectedly wholesome, with one person reacting with a string of laughing emojis and calling the entire exchange “so cute”.- EndsPublished By: Yashna TalwarPublished On: Aug 27, 2026 17:46 IST