A plate with bread, a bottle of soybean oil in the background, and three words that say it all: "But it has a tin." With that simple reel, the Cuban Arlet Dianelis Martinez Martinez achieved what few content creators do: connect instantly with thousands of people who live the exact same reality.
The video, posted on Facebook in August, shows a blue plate with what appears to be bread or boiled yuca alongside a bottle of soybean oil brand CASALIVA —light blue label, with the inscription "ECO BOTELLA"— resting on a ceramic cooktop.
The scene is marked by a starkness that needs no explanation: the food is as basic as possible, but "it has a flair." In Cuba, that colloquialism means "a little bit," and in the current context, it carries the full weight of resigned humor in the face of scarcity.
The reel exceeded 10,000 likes on Facebook and left its own creator speechless. Arlet posted a second video to thank everyone for their response, visibly emotional: "What a huge surprise, what a kind of joy you have given me, you all are incredible, really you are. You know I almost had a heart attack because of you."
The reaction from her followers overwhelmed her: "Hey my love, they are a bunch of crazy ones, I love them. Thank you for so much, for so much, for so much.", she added in that same clip.
Arlet's video is not an isolated case. Since July 2026, cooking oil has become the starkest symbol of the Cuban food crisis. Resolution 150/2026 from the Ministry of Finance and Prices, published on June 20, removed price caps on imported cooking oils and repealed the previous limit of 990 Cuban pesos (CUP) per liter.
What followed was an unstoppable escalation: the price of a liter reached 2,500 CUP in Havana at the end of July, exceeded 3,000 CUP in Sancti Spíritus overnight, and in August it reached between 4,000 and 7,000 CUP in various provinces.
Faced with that chaos, dozens of Cubans responded with humor on social media. A user known as @norma.morado "showed off" with a bottle of oil as if it were a luxury accessory.
The comedian Loky Kubah went viral with a sketch where the price increases from 2,500 to 3,500 CUP while the customer searches for the money.
A young man nicknamed "El Burla" kept a bottle of oil in a safe, surpassing 14,000 likes. And the Cuban Yisel Benítez walked the streets searching for oil and returned with an empty bag, accumulating over 822,000 views.
The expression "a tin" had already gained political resonance in May 2026, when the meme "Me queda un tin" went viral as a parody directly targeting Díaz-Canel's management.
The reel from Arlet picks up that same phrase, but from a humorous everyday perspective: showing that the food has "a hint" of oil is enough for thousands of Cubans to see themselves in the image.
Meanwhile, a Cuban declared an "oil strike" on social media in response to prices of 7,000 CUP, and 33.9% of Cuban households reported that at least one person went to bed hungry in the past 30 days.
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