An Illinois woman stopped at a gas station for a quick drink, but she ended up filming something unusual in her orange soda. In a TikTok video, ShayShontez shows small dark specks scattered throughout the drink and ice. The clip has since gained more than 73,000 views.
The 12-second video opens with ShayShontez saying, “Yeah, I came here to get something to drink.” The camera then turns toward the fountain machine before focusing on her cup of orange soda. “Look at this. Look at this s**t,” she says, followed by an incredulous, “Oh, my gosh.”
The video does not establish what the specks are or where they came from, though they appear to move like tiny insects. One commenter suggested they could be ants, writing, “And the only reason you noticed is because it was orange soda if it was a dark colored soda you would’ve drank ants!” Another commenter joked, “Spicy sprinkles.” Claims of bugs in drinks have come up on social media before, but the footage alone cannot establish whether the particles are insects.
How clean are these machines?
The video has 229 comments. The top one, with close to 2,000 likes, reads, “Imagine you got a coke.” ShayShontez replied, “I swear. Good thing I don’t like dark soda.” With a darker drink, the specks might not have been so easy to notice.
Another commenter wrote, “Yall would be surprised how nasty those fountains are!” They also claimed that removing and soaking the nozzles takes about five extra minutes, though that claim has not been independently verified.
The FDA Food Code is a model used by state and local authorities when setting food safety requirements. Section 4-602.11 addresses the cleaning of beverage dispensing nozzles and lines, requiring them to be cleaned at the manufacturer’s specified frequency or often enough to prevent soil or mold buildup when no frequency is specified.
Matt Taylor, NSF’s director of food safety consulting, also told Food Republic that these machines can be “a breeding ground for bacteria if not properly maintained.” The requirements and inspection practices that apply depend on the jurisdiction, and the video does not identify the gas station.
Posts like this are not new on TikTok. Creators have also shared odd finds in store-bought food, including a jar of chili powder that appeared to have something moving in it. The video does not identify the gas station. No public response from the store or a health department was identified at the time of writing.
Published: Oct 14, 2026 07:53 am