A woman has shared her confusion after discovering that workplace messaging platform Slack inexplicably allows users to change the sound of a message notification to the word “hummus”.
Claudia Carlucci, who goes by the username @claudiacarluccirealtor on TikTok, documented her “concern” over the amusing finding in a video posted to the app on Tuesday, where she wondered why the option was possible.
“I have a quick concern because I just realised you could change the sound of a Slack message from the classic sound,” the Chicago-based realtor said, before showing her computer screen, where she clicked on the option “hummus” to play a woman’s voice uttering the word. “One of the options… why?”
In the caption of the video, Carlucci added: “Literally who is responsible for this?”
The video, which has been viewed more than 240,000 times as of Wednesday, has been met with a range of reactions from viewers, with some TikTok users revealing they were equally confused by the discovery, while others admitted that they already knew it was possible to change a notification alert to hummus.
“HAHA WHAT,” one person commented, while another said: “Um, I did not know this was an option. BRB.”
However, others revealed that they were already knowledgeable about the unique option, with some claiming to have used the alert for some time.
“This brought me so much joy for about a month in 2020. Now I can never hear it again,” one person joked.
Another said: “Haha I used this sound all the time and my coworkers hated me.”
“I did this on day one when my office went with Slack and haven’t changed it since,” someone else admitted.
According to another Slack user, their change from the default alert to hummus led to confusion in their household. “Mine is set hummus and my fiancé thought it was saying Thomas,” they wrote. “He said: ‘Why does Thomas message you so much?!’”
To access the sound on Slack, one has to navigate to Slack preferences, before scrolling down to the sound and appearance section under the notifications menu. Once there, users can select the sound from a drop-down list of options.
In addition to hummus, users can also choose from sound options such as “Plink,” “Wow,” and “Whoa!”
As for why Slack offers the word as a notification alert option, The National reported that it has to do with the company’s former editorial director, Anna Pickard, whose colleagues reportedly loved the way she said “hummus” in her British accent.
“Because we love our Anna so much that we wanted to save her delightful voice for posterity,” Slack tweeted in response to one curious user in 2016. “Also, because hummus.”
According to The National, the sound began as an inside joke available only internally to Slack employees. However, Pickard was later informed on Twitter that the sound of her saying “hummus” was “on literally millions of computers”.
The feature has remained popular since then, with one person joking in response to Carlucci’s TikTok: “The hummus noise has changed my life.”
The Independent has contacted Slack for comment.
