Earlier this year we saw a rash of teenagers joining in on the “Tide Pod Challenge” and while there does seem to be some truth to this story, there is also more to it than there seems. The phenomenon goes back to 2011 when people would post videos on Facebook and YouTube showing them supposedly ingesting detergent pods. The trend died down shortly after this until a satirical article was posted on the satire site The Onion, an op-ed by a young boy vowing to eat a detergent pod as soon as his parents drop their guard. Again in 2017 the site College Humor uploaded a video purporting to show the allure of the detergent pod “Don’t Eat the Laundry Pods. (Seriously. They’re Poison.)” YouTube has since started deleting videos posted participating in the “Tide Pod Challenge” and it seems to have again died down. Although, was it every really as widespread as it seemed? The only proof we seem to have are videos that are being deleted by YouTube, and in fact the instance of calls to poison control dropped by 14% in 2017. But in a worrying trend there were 140 calls about detergent poisoning in January alone. Which when you consider that in all of 2017 there were only 54 calls does show quite a spike. But the good news is that it seems that the trend has died off since then.
But where one trend ends another seemingly takes its place. Now we are facing the “Condom Snorting Challenge” the supposedly newest trend among those ‘crazy teens’. But there is no proof that this is actually a new trend, most videos of this phenomenon date from 2013, some going as back far as 2007.
And of course the “News” network heading the reporting on this new trend is Fox News itself, which has a history of reporting on fake teen trends. This story has since been picked up by other news networks.
But again this seems to be more fake outrage over a trend that is not nearly as widespread as it’s being reported. So while it IS happening, it isn’t at nearly the levels claimed. This again seems to show a favorite target of Conservative media, teenagers and millennials especially in the wake of activism by the youth in favor or firearms restrictions. Does this mean that this is a concerted attack to discredit the youth? That may be the case but there is no real proof of that either. It’s always possible that this is just normal, every generation loves to point at the younger generation and say “Look at those crazy kids”. So of course as always, remain skeptical. While these teen trends do seem to have basis in reality, they aren’t quite at the epidemic level.
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