The Salmon Sashimi Thread: 24K Likes from a Podcast Episode
The Story
Trung’s most referenced viral thread was about salmon sashimi. The hook: salmon sashimi wasn’t originally Japanese. The twist: the Norwegian government ran a marketing campaign in the 1990s to get Japan to eat raw salmon. He sourced the story from a Planet Money / Freakonomics-style podcast.
The thread got 24K likes. It worked because everyone thinks sashimi = Japan. The friction between belief and reality drove massive engagement.
This illustrates Trung’s thread formula:
- Take a universally known topic
- Find the surprising, counterintuitive angle
- Trigger the “Oh shit, I didn’t realize that!” response
- Use interesting images and humor to maintain flow
- Keep it to roughly 15 tweets
- Include a CTA and newsletter link at the end
Lesson for Creators
The most shareable content challenges assumptions your audience didn’t know they had. Everyone “knows” that sashimi is Japanese. Showing them it’s actually Norwegian creates cognitive friction that demands a response (share, comment, save). Find the “wait, really?” in every topic.
Related
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None of My Ideas Are Original - The Curation Method — same pattern: repackaging existing information into a more compelling format
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Reddit Comments Are Gold Mines — Where Trung finds the raw material and surprising facts that fuel threads like the salmon sashimi story
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Guerrilla User Research in the Cafeteria — Finding valuable insights in unexpected, informal places rather than through official channels
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Smart Threads and Dumb Memes - The Barbell Strategy — The growth side of the barbell strategy, where deep research threads like this one drive follower acquisition