Disclaimer: Please don’t try any of these at home.
The Internet is a weird place. Incredibly random and absolutely unpredictable. Often, strange sights find a place on our social media algorithm where people are seen trying the millionth rendition of a cliche trend that’s not exciting, but is, in fact, absolutely wasteful, if not dangerous.
No, there’s nothing inherently wrong about experimenting with stuff and making content out of it. This is about dangerously stupid trends ranging from people eating detergents to them setting themselves on fire. Here are 10 of the dumbest dares people took up because they were challenges on the Internet.
1. Eating Tide pods as if they’re some candy
In 2018, something called the ‘Tide Pod Challenge‘ emerged online. It had people deliberately consuming Tide Pods as part of an Internet dare. A few years prior to it, there had been incidents involving children consuming the detergent that resulted in deaths. In fact, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission had even issued a warning against the same. Sadly, the warning failed to warn adults expecting some common sense.
2. Holding breath until you pass out
Also called the ‘Pass Out’ or the ‘Choking’ challenge, the Blackout Challenge involved people holding their breaths until they passed out as a result of limited oxygen. Reportedly, this trend actually originated sometime around 2008 and re-surfaced on TikTok over a decade later, claiming multiple lives.
3. Applying a 100 layers of anything
100 layers of mascara, lipstick, foundation, or literally anything is just wasteful, but, with Internet, it becomes content.
4. Hopping out of a moving car and dancing to ‘Kiki, do you love me‘
Not only was this incredibly weird but also incredibly stupid.
5. Playing with fire as if our bodies are fire proof
What this challenge entailed was people put flammable things like spraying aerosol cans or sanitisers on their bodies and then set them on fire. How stuupid is that!
6. Eating a spoonful of cinnamon for no apparent reason
The cinnamon challenge involved eating a spoon of cinnamon within a minute without taking any water. One potential side effect of this was lung collapse, but life risk has never been much of a problem for the Internet trends.
7. Inhaling condoms because…no, we don’t have a because
This trend typically targeted teens, turning them into their parent’s deadliest nightmares. How? By making them snort a condom until it came out of their mouths.
8. Testing their pain tolerance by running a little ‘salt and ice’ experiment on the skin
Now, this is simple. People put salt on their skin followed by ice. For an ordinary person, this could cause second and third-degree burns. But everyone is immune in the TikTok land.
9. Cooking chicken breast in cough syrup
According to WebMD, Nyquil is a medicine used to treat common cold, flu, and allergies. But the Internet had some idiots stowing chicken breasts in it. The risks associated with it, you ask? Well, seizures, dizziness, breathing difficulties, and whatnot. But all’s fair in the TikTok wonderland.
10. When things took a dark turn with the Blue Whale challenge
While the origins of the Blue Whale Challenge remain unknown, it’s widely reported that a section of kids worldwide became victims of this dangerous game, based on self harm. Here, over a period of 50 days, an anonymous instructor assigned them 50 increasingly difficult dares, the last one being taking their life. In December 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued an advisory declaring the challenge an abetment to suicide.
Actually, it’s not the Internet. It’s us, humans, we’re the problem!