What should brands post with the A little treat trend?

Aesthetic product b-roll of the "treat" item Haul or unboxing footage Lifestyle POV getting-ready or going-out routine Close-up of the moment of purchase or first use Flat-lay of the product with a coffee or bag

A little treat

Updated August 2, 2026

Beauty Food & Drink Lifestyle

Example 10:06

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What is the A little treat trend?

The audio states "My toxic trait is that I think I deserve a little treat every time I leave the house." Creators pair it with a product or ritual they bought for themselves with no real justification beyond wanting it. Brands use it to position a product as the treat: a beauty purchase, a coffee order, a daily ritual that feels indulgent without being expensive.

Where did the A little treat trend come from?

The "A little treat" trend on TikTok and Instagram Reels merges two converging meme lineages. The phrase template "My Toxic Trait is..." originated on Twitter around mid-2018, used both sincerely and ironically to confess an ostensibly bad character habit. The "little treat" concept gained a distinct viral foothold when X (Twitter) user @NINETIREDBUGS posted a widely shared tweet on March 18, 2021 about treating oneself after 53 consecutive rough weeks, accumulating over 173,000 likes. The cultural antecedent is the "Treat Yo' Self" concept from a 2011 episode of Parks and Recreation. By 2023, the combined phrase "my toxic trait is thinking I deserve a little treat every time I leave the house" had surfaced on TikTok as a viral caption and spoken-audio format, coinciding with a "Little Treat Culture" wave that received mainstream media coverage in 2023-2024. Brand accounts and lifestyle creators adopted the format to showcase products as the "treat," pairing the self-aware humor of the "toxic trait" template with the indulgence frame of little treat culture. No single original creator of the exact audio phrase has been definitively documented in public sources. The format propagated organically as a captioned text and voice-over template.