Lettuce was this week’s internet obsession, thanks to Liz Truss and Olivia Wilde

No, there’s no new TikTok fad recipe — at least that we’re aware of right now — prompting all of those mentions of “lettuce“ on your feed. The attention actually stems from two completely different realms of the internet that intersected this week.

One centers around Hollywood actress and director Olivia Wilde. The other, around Britain’s Liz Truss, who resigned from her short-lived prime minister position Thursday.

If none of this makes sense, hang in there. Here’s a brief overview.

The British public’s lack of support for Truss was no secret. It was to the point that earlier this month, a column in The Economist called her “The Iceberg Lady” and said that following Queen Elizabeth’s death, Truss’ power would be as sustainable as “the shelf life of a lettuce.”

The analogy took off.

British tabloid the Daily Star launched a live stream last week to see what would last longer: a head of lettuce or the prime minister’s reign. For days, the lettuce head, dawning a taped-on face and wig, sat next to a framed photo of Truss. The chyrons asked: Will Liz Truss outlast this lettuce?

Thursday morning, Truss, 47, earned her place in history as Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister resigning after just 44 days. On the live stream, her photo was placed face down. Disco lights flashed and almost 20,000 people tuned in as the music switched from “God Save the King” to “Celebration.”

Late Thursday morning, the live stream featured the caption: “The lettuce outlasted Liz Truss.”

» READ MORE: U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss quits 6 weeks into her term after turmoil obliterated her authority

Across the pond, another tabloid has brought all eyes on lettuce — or rather, the dressing going on top of it.

An article posted by the Daily Mail on Tuesday published details from an interview with a former nanny to Olivia Wilde and her ex-partner, Jason Sudeikis, airing out details from home life and separation. The Hollywood couple’s relationship has been very public because of their stardom as well as Wilde’s kind-of-secret kind-of-common knowledge relationship with pop star Harry Styles.

In the interview, the former nanny alleged that Sudeikis was enraged after finding out that Wilde had made salad with her “special dressing” for Styles. The internet spent the next few days in a tailspin trying to figure out what the special dressing entailed. Some even resurfaced an old recipe the actress shared with Food Network in 2020.

Wilde stayed silent as people obsessed over vinaigrette proportions until quietly posting a photo of an open Nora Ephron book to her Instagram stories. The since-expired post showed a page of the novel “Heartburn,” which includes a salad dressing recipe: “Mix 2 tablespoons Grey Poupon mustard with 2 tablespoons good red wine vinegar,” the passage outlined by Wilde reads. “Then whisking constantly with a fork, slowly add 6 tablespoons olive oil, until the vinaigrette is thick and creamy; this makes a very strong vinaigrette that’s perfect for salad greens like arugula and watercress and endive.”

The intersection of these two wildly different memes, only overlapping because of a common ingredient, represents the latest example of an internet culture full of jokes and references that would not make sense out of context.

“Both of these topics involve high-profile individuals and widespread media attention, which almost always makes a perfect recipe for memes in terms of current internet culture,” said Zach Sweat, Know Your Meme’s managing editor.

Still, brands know they can translate memes into consumerism.

Aldi grocery store tweeted “What a great day to be lettuce” from its Twitter account, garnering nearly 70,000 likes.

Google Trends data show a surge in searches for “lettuce” in the United Kingdom in the last 24 hours. In the United Kingdom, “Liz Truss lettuce” is considered a rising trend, while in the United States, “Olivia Wilde salad dressing” is having a moment.

But, just like lettuce heads — which last about seven to 10 days — these trends are also likely to have a fairly short shelf life.

Memes “wind up appearing to take over social media like Twitter — though they usually burn out quickly,” Sweat said.