First came the “Cinnamon Challenge”
Next came the “Condom Challenge”
And then… the “Tide Pod Challenge”
In December of 2017, teens were eating tide pods. Why? The short answer: The internet. The “Tide Pod Challenge” went viral in 2017, it involved“ a person eating a laundry detergent pod in front of a wide internet audience. The outcome? A large number of teens being hospitalized due to voluntary ingestion of these toxic tide pods. According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, the first 15 days of 2018 have handled about 39 reported cases of intentional ingestion of Tide Pods from 13- to 19-year-olds. Any number more than zero of people willingly eating laundry detergent should qualify as shocking, and 39 certainly counts. Following the growth of the meme, social media websites like Facebook and YouTube started removing tide pod challenge related content so as to prevent spread of this potentially fatal “challenge”.
The Origin of the “Tide Pod Challenge”
It all started when twitter user @wastelandbaby tweeted out and tried to persuade Gushers to make a fruit candy that looked like a laundry pod. After tweeting this and posting a few screenshots of the twitter user and the company, it went viral, and the internet being the internet, legions of content creators and meme-makers flooded the internet with tide pod memes, referring to the pods as “The Forbidden Fruit”. This further lead to teens recording themselves at least 39 of them got sick and called a poison control center. Maybe they did it for the attention, or maybe they just wanted to watch the world burn.
Official Public Health Hazard
The American Association of Poison Control Centers strongly warns against eating laundry detergent, and so does everyone else (including Tide’s official Twitter account). Last year alone, U.S. Poison control centers received reports of over 10,500 children younger than 5 who ingested the pods and 55 teens intentionally ingested it according to American Association of Poison Control Centers.
