What era or genre are you getting the pop culture from? Twinkies at least have only been a joke in media for at least 15 years because of zombie survival stuff, and longer as a 'haha look at the fat kid' before that. Die Hard uses them as a comedic element to break up parts of the film but in less of a joking about Twinkies directly way, though it is part of the overweight cop's character. That movie is nearly 40 years old though and probably marks around the time Twinkies started shifting from a snack to a meme

Edit to add: They also originally had banana flavored filling. You can still find these sometimes and while not good they're better than the plain ones imo