You’ve been using cereal boxes wrong for your whole life - here’s why

Have you ever seen this technique before? (Photo: Shutterstock)Have you ever seen this technique before? (Photo: Shutterstock)
Have you ever seen this technique before? (Photo: Shutterstock)

The internet has proved vital to keeping people sane and entertained during lockdown, and now it’s teaching us new ways of making day-to-day life easier - like how to ‘properly’ close a cereal box.

This is everything you need to know about the latest internet life hack that’s been blowing everyone's minds.

How to close a cereal box

Originating on TikTok, user katybee2020 posted a video with the caption, “You been doing it wrong all this time! #lifehack #lifehacks #technique #hacks #kelloggs #cerealcheck”

The video itself then showed how to close a cereal box ‘properly’.

First, you need to fold in the two short tabs on either side of the box and one of the longer flaps, leaving the other long tab free.

Then pinch the two sides of the box closed, and, with the remaining tab, tuck the flap into the box.

You’re left with a sealed cereal box that tapers up into a triangle at the top of the box.

The video has racked up over 190,000 likes, with other users expressing their amazement in the comments.

Online reaction

One TikTok user wrote, “All this time….? I’ve been doing it wrong!!!!”

“I hope I’m not the only one who went and tried this! It works!” Wrote someone else.

Reactions to the hack haven’t just stayed on TikTok though, with Twitter users trying their hand at closing their cereal boxes in this new way.

One tweet read, “Wow that cereal box folding hack really worked.. I’m impressed.”

“Do you think my mum has seen the cereal box life hack video?” Tweeted another, with a picture of multiple cereal boxes all folded up neatly.

Someone else wrote, “In other news, I have just tried that cereal box hack that’s been bouncing around on t’interweb and my mind if officially BLOWN.”

Not everyone has been impressed by the hack though, with others feeling the new way of closing the box is too complicated and unnecessary.

“I tried that hack for closing the cereal box and I just don’t really get it.. Like I don’t feel like it’s really making a difference in how the box closes. Maybe I’m wrong?” Wrote another Twitter user.

Someone else in the original comments of the video also wrote, “That’s too much work. Just slide the tab and put it away.”

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