I got in trouble for using the wrong ketchup at Cambridge University

Earlier this month, TikToker Ariana Lee told her 970K viewers a hilarious and embarrassing story about condiment etiquette at Cambridge.

After starting her PhD, Ariana went for lunch into one of the colleges and, after collecting fries, was looking for some ketchup to combat the blandness of the canteen food.

Explaining her brain went into “McDonald’s mode,” she ran up by the high table and started “pumping ketchup” only to find that when she turned around “every single fellow at that that table was staring and glaring” at her.

Ariana was absolutely mortified when a woman got up from the fellows’ table and said “you cannot use that ketchup, that ketchup is reserved for fellows only.”

Ariana said she didn’t even know was a fellow was and started apologising because she wanted to be “respectful” of the “rules and traditions.”

@arianawlee

definitely want to be respectful of cambridge’s rules and traditions!! just a funny culture shock moment as a new student here #cambridge #cambridgeuniversity

♬ original sound – Ariana

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Despite this, comments on her TikTok are slightly less sympathetic towards the fellows the qualms. One user said: “This is so weird. You’re telling me there’s a class hierarchy at Cambridge?” while another claimed incidents like this are “why I withdrew my place.”

Debates broke out in the comments over whether having a fellows table was event appropriate with users debating whether it was a “segregated space” or Ariana had just not used “common sense”.

Safe to say this gaff will not be happening again as Ariana assured her viewers she had “not made the same mistake since” and “definitely learned her lesson.”

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Cambridge University has been contacted for comment.