The answer is way more interesting than you might think. More than just an unhinged marketing gimmick, the story of South Korean Green Onion Chex is really about a fight for breakfast democracy, 16 years in the making.

In 2004, Kellogg’s of South Korea made one very short-sighted assumption. They wanted to debut a new version of their Chocolate Chex cereal—yes, it must be noted that, for some reason, Kellogg’s SK has the rights to use Chex (a General Mills cereal almost everywhere else) in branding—so Kellogg’s marketers launched an event for kids: an election between two candidates in the running to be “the president of Kellogg–Chex world.”

Kids could vote for either Cheky, a hip young square who promised to double the chocolate flavor in Kellogg’s Chex cereal, or Chaka, a rude and ugly Chex piece who promised to put green onions in Kellogg’s Chex instead. Again, foolishly assuming that kids would naturally choose super-chocolatey Cheky over his hybrid Shrek/Mucinex Mascot opponent, Kellogg’s SK let kids vote through a public online poll.

As these things tend to go on the Internet, the South Korean analogue to Reddit found about the election and stuffed the ballot box in Chaka’s favor. It got so out of hand that Kellogg’s shut down the poll and started collecting votes only over the phone and in-person at amusement parks. But this slow method of ballot collection wasn’t enough—by the contest’s end, Chaka’s lead was too large, and Kellogg’s—who clearly never intended to make a green onion cereal—declared the earlier online votes invalid and launched a double-chocolate Chex cereal.

As those sorts of egregious things tend to go on the Internet, there was a flurry of emotionally charged responses from online Chaka supporters, including satirical memes slandering Cheky and claims that Chaka’s reneged victory was an affront to South Korea’s status as a democracy.

After so many years, this election fraud and quasi-feigned outrage more or less faded from public memory—that is, until this week, when Kellogg’s of South Korea announced that Chaka would finally be done justice with new Green Onion Chex Cereal:

This official, six-second video features a singer repeating “I’m sorry,” as if to apologize for Cheky’s ill-gotten 16-year dictatorship. The box art that soon followed (seen at the top of this post), makes the green onion-theming more thorough, stating in multiple places that it is “made with real green onions.”

So there you have it: a decade and a half of political intrigue that’s resulted in milky onions for breakfast. I’d call this one a flat-out win for both democracy and cereal history, but I’ll reserve final judgement until I’m able to try the stuff for myself when it allegedly releases in July; the brand is currently recruiting taste testers. No guarantees that I’ll be able to get one, but with some South Korea-based friends of this site, it just might be possible—even if it’s an impossible taste to stomach.

No matter what, Chaka’s rightful ascent brings a tear to my eye. Or maybe that’s just the…well, you know.

(My thanks go out to Empty Bowl listener Janelle K. who brought this cereal’s full backstory to my attention.)