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Is It Cake? Fans Want To Change The Show’s Decoy Rule
“It really irks me and feels like cheating.”
If you spent your holiday weekend watching Is It Cake? Season 2, you’re not alone. The culinary competition show quickly shot to the top of Netflix’s Top 10 TV list after its June 30 premiere, second only to the return of The Witcher. And it makes sense! It’s fun to watch the care and technique that goes into crafting deliciously deceptive confections. But despite being a fun, generally drama-free alternative to other unscripted offerings, there’s one element of Is It Cake? that has prompted a heated response from viewers.
To recap, the basic premise of the show is a lot like what you’ve seen in various cake TikToks: Can you (or in this case, the judges) tell the difference between a hyperrealistic cake and the object it’s trying to emulate? There’s a total prize pot of $120,000 at stake here — so while it’s a very fun competition, it’s also a potentially life-changing one.
This may be why viewers at home are so passionate about changing one rule, in particular: the caveat that contestants can alter their “decoys,” or their non-cake items, to help boost their cake’s chances at duping the judges. They can do this by painting over the other items (like flashlights, for example) to throw off inspection and make the real stuff look, well, a little faker.
It should be noted that this sleight of hand is allowed, per Is It Cake? rules. As host Mikey Day explained to The Hollywood Reporter after a Season 1 contestant was accused of cheating, “Altering the decoys was allowed and part of it. You can mess with the decoys a little bit.”
But while it’s a totally legit part of the gameplay, many Is It Cake? viewers aren’t happy with the loophole — as evidenced by their tweets over the holiday weekend.
Even one of the Is It Cake? contestants weighed in on the conversation. Liz Marek, who was sent home in Episode 3 of the latest season, recently opened up to Bustle about her elimination. “The game is how realistic you can make [the cake] look [in comparison to] the decoy,” she said. “But the way that the game also works is sometimes by luck. The judges panic, they guess, and sometimes they guess not in your favor.” (On the show, it seemed that Liz dedicated most of her time to nailing the realistic fabric look of her cake — a stack of college sweatshirts — but less on altering the decoys.)
Only time will tell if there’s an Is It Cake? Season 3 — and whether or not the decoy rule gets changed in time for the next installment.
