Ready to have your childhood ruined? A viral video currently doing the rounds on TikTok has drawn attention to the seemingly X-rated packaging design for Haribo's Maoam sweets. And, well, yes. We can certainly see it.
Viewed over three million times, the clip (below) simply asks 'Why have we never realised what Maoams are actually doing?', while displaying six different illustrated wrapper designs – all of which depict fruit-based characters in some rather, er, compromising positions. It seems Haribo's character design is fruity in more ways than one.
From typographical blunders to the only logo ever to receive a police complaint, we've seen plenty of accidentally offensive designs over the past few months – and perhaps that's exactly what's happened here. Surely the designers didn't intentionally design a bunch of NSFW sweet wrappers, right? The fruit are all just play-fighting, right? Right?
Perhaps there's a perfectly innocent explanation for all this (Image credit: Haribo)
Well, as is the case with all cursed images on the internet, once you see it, you can't unsee it. And it seems Twitter users have been seeing it for a while, with tweets highlighting the questionable packaging popping up regularly over the last few years.
Maoam’s have literally been shagging on the packaging for years and nobody has said a word, I’m in disbelief pic.twitter.com/rPazKRjRwIApril 11, 2021
Never realised how rude maoam packaging is until now... pic.twitter.com/VKboTLE4i2April 14, 2013
But if the designs are a little too fruity for your taste, fear not – Maoam's packaging was actually redesigned in 2015. And as you can see below (as well as on Haribo's website), there isn't a compromising position in sight. All's well in the world.
Maoam's new packaging is much more innocent (Image credit: Haribo)
Still, we remember Maoam's previous packaging – and said memory is now well and truly sullied. Check out these 37 standout packaging designs if you're looking for some truly bold examples, and if you fancy designing your own, take a look at the best Adobe Creative Cloud deals below.
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Daniel John is Senior News Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of art, design, branding and lifestyle tech (which often translates to tech made by Apple). He joined in 2020 after working in copywriting and digital marketing with brands including ITV, NBC, Channel 4 and more.
