The stupidity reached a-tok-alyptic ranges.
With TikTok overtaking Google as the most popular site in 2021, the Chinese language video-sharing platform unsurprisingly spawned some ridiculous tendencies this 12 months as customers vied for viral fame.
A few of these on-line pursuits — such as the delightfully wholesome classical music craze — proved inspiring. Nevertheless, the lion’s share had been, as in years previous, so harebrained they made the notorious “Gorilla Glue” fiasco appear to be a string idea symposium.
Why does it appear to be TikTok’s cornered the market on dumb and harmful stunts? It may need one thing to do with the truth that practically 1 / 4 of the positioning’s users in 2021 were between 10 and 19 — an age the place the a part of the mind liable for impulse administration remains to be woefully underdeveloped.
This age group is extra more likely to “have interaction in socially rewarding habits and gravitate towards thrill-seeking, with out specializing in potential dangers or penalties,” in keeping with Sabrina Sykes, a psychologist at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center.
Couple this with the app’s notorious eyeball-seeking algorithm, and also you’ve bought the perfect surroundings for these feckless feats to flourish.
With out additional ado, listed below are the perfect and worst TikTok tendencies of 2021.
The Milk Crate Problem
Thought TikTok had reached the summit of stupidity? Enter the Milk Crate Challenge, a painful pastime by which social media bozos try to traverse a pyramid of precariously stacked milk crates — typically with disastrous outcomes.
Allegedly first showcased on Fb by Kenneth Waddell in August, the spine-snapping problem shortly took TikTok by storm with clout-seeking chuckleheads sharing movies of their most wince-worthy wipeouts.
Even Pittsburgh Steelers huge receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster took an ill-advised stab on the problem forward of the workforce’s opening recreation in September. Fortunately, he was in a position to scale the milk crate Matterhorn with out struggling any accidents.
Nonetheless, TMCC sparked such an uproar within the medical neighborhood that TikTok vowed to take away any movies showcasing the foolhardy feat. However hey, no use crying over spilled Milk Crate clips.
The Magnet Problem
If the milk crate problem prompts query marks, the magnet problem causes a “semi-colon.” On the floor, this magnet for catastrophe appeared harmless sufficient: younger youngsters feigning tongue piercings on digital camera by inserting spherical magnetic balls on the tops and bottoms of their lollipop lickers.
Nevertheless, it shortly proved to be something however after an 11-year-old UK participant named Ellis Tripp needed to have a number of magnets extracted from his abdomen — leading to a number of inches of his bowel being eliminated. The hospital revealed that Tripp was the fifth child they’d admitted for a similar situation that week.
In a dire case in March, medical doctors had been pressured to take away the appendix, small gut, and a part of the massive gut from a 9-year-old UK boy who had ingested six magnets throughout the problem.
The Watermelon Mustard Problem
What would TikTok be with out some gag-inducing meals combo? This 12 months’s freaky Frankenfusion concerned consuming a watermelon slice slathered in French’s mustard, which consumer @yayayayummy described because the perfect marriage between sweet and vinegary.
Many epicureans disagreed with well-known flutist Lizzo ripping the off-putting pairing in a clip with over 6 million likes.
The Dry Scooping problem
Regardless of being labelled 18-plus, pre-workout protein powder has develop into a preferred fad amongst teen fitness center junkies. A very harmful methodology of ingestion is dry-scooping a okay a consuming the muscle combine with out water — a pattern that’s racked up tens of millions of views on TikTok.
Docs have since cautioned towards this follow, which they are saying can result in choking, unintended inhalation, over-consumption, damage and dying. One 20-year-old influencer even suffered a heart attack this previous summer season after mainlining a few of the undiluted complement.
The Blackout Problem
The blackout problem — by which a participant holds their breath till they move out — predates social media. Nevertheless it has experienced a dismaying second coming on TikTok as younger customers amass tens of millions of views by performing this asphyxiation-inducing stunt on digital camera.
The exercise has resulted in multiple fatalities, with the newest tragedy occurring this previous December, when 10-year-old participant Nyla Anderson was pronounced useless after being discovered unconscious in her Pennsylvania house.
Tiktok is at the moment purging “Blackout” problem movies in an effort to fight the pattern.
“We stay vigilant in our dedication to consumer security and would instantly take away associated content material if discovered,” a TikTok spokesperson instructed The Submit.
Tic-Tok
Apparently folks might be harmed by the app even with out taking part in its feats of stupidity. Doctors worldwide are warning of a frightening phenomenon by which younger ladies are reportedly exhibiting tic-like signs — which they’ve attributed to them parroting standard influencers with Tourette syndrome in addition to pandemic stress.
The Lavatory Problem/Slap A Trainer Problem
Whereas some TikTok tendencies fostered self-harm, others inspired hurting others, like a teeny bopper model of Undertaking Mayhem in “Combat Membership.” Case in point: the bathroom challenge, by which US highschool college students had been dared to steal and destroy college property, often in restrooms, and doc their acts of vandalism on social media.
Additionally dubbed “the devious lick problem,” the harmful stunt has resulted within the injury and theft of all the things from cleaning soap dispensers to rest room stalls. “Somebody tried to unbolt a urinal,” stated Max Orston, a pupil at Riverwood Excessive Faculty in Georgia.
The chaotic stunt prompted determined college directors throughout the nation to shutter bogs in an effort to mitigate the injury.
An abhorrent offshoot of loo problem, the slap a instructor problem, reportedly dared college students to — you guessed it — movie themselves assaulting educators and put up the movies to social media.
School at varied faculties started warning of the perverse pastime in September. Nevertheless it didn’t materialize till the next month, when a Louisiana High School student named Larrianna Jackson was arrested and charged with the felony battery of her 64-year-old wheelchair-bound English instructor. Investigators seized the cellphones of students who recorded the assault, however not earlier than the clip had been disseminated throughout social media.
Whereas police initially blamed the assault on the alleged TikTok problem, the platform denied ever selling the slap-happy stunt.
“The rumored ‘slap a instructor’ dare is an insult to educators in every single place,” they tweeted following the incident. “And whereas this isn’t a pattern on TikTok, if at any level it reveals up, content material can be eliminated.”
The Shoot Up Your Faculty Problem
The crown jewel of sordid college dares occurred earlier in December, when an anonymous Toker announced that a number of college shootings would go down on Friday, Dec. 17.
This prompted faculties throughout the nation to beef up their safety, and ship letters to oldsters, in anticipation of the so-called “Shoot Up Your Faculty” problem. Fortunately, the gun violence by no means went down, and authorities have since deemed the menace to be all Tok.
“Legislation enforcement businesses have investigated this menace and decided that it originated in Arizona and isn’t credible,” the official Baltimore County Public Faculties Twitter account tweeted Dec. 16.
Nonetheless, the hoax proved notably horrifying because it occurred lower than a month after 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley allegedly opened fire at Oxford High School, killing 4 folks and injuring seven.
Tik-Docs
Fortunately, not all 2021 TikTok fads made viewers need to tear their hair out. On a extra high-brow observe, medical doctors have been more and more posting quirky science content material in an effort to teach children about drugs.
And whereas physicians importing TikTok clips nothing new, its reputation spiked in June when Detroit plastic surgeon Dr. Anthony Youn ripped medical experts for dismissing breast implant sickness.
The TikTok doc, who boasts 7.4 million TikTok followers, has since posted viral movies on all the things from penis length to the hazards of sleeping in the nude. In a single bizarre clip with millions of views, Dr. Youn bit each breast and butt implants to see which was extra sturdy.
Youn isn’t the one medical practitioner taking TikTok by storm. The UK’s Dr. Karan Rajan has amassed over 4 million followers for a sequence of wacky medical explainers, which embrace a special shortcut for gauging penis proportions, the good thing about having a giant butt, and the importance of never passing on passing gas.
Stop-Tok
As nationwide resignation rates hit historic highs amid the pandemic — in a pattern dubbed the “nice resignation” — Era Z “unemployees” flocked to social media to have fun quitting their gigs.
The Zoomers’ occupational adieus garnered huge reward on-line, whereas the hashtag #iquitmyjob amassed practically 200 million views on TikTok.
Causes for his or her resignations ranged from bad management to a must give attention to their psychological well-being. In a single video, consumer @kileerainbow wrote how she determined to give up her gig after realizing the “job isn’t price my psychological well being regardless of how properly it pays & how loyal I’m.”
Strip-Tok
Stripper vids would possibly sound like yet another sleazeball pattern circulating on TikTok. However intercourse workers increasingly took to the video-sharing platform to make clear their oft-stigmatized occupation.
Within the stereotype-shattering phenomenon, dubbed “StripTok,” unique dancers tackled matters starting from picking the perfect stage name to explaining the nature of their gig to her kid. Additionally they stripped away the misconceptions that unique dancers are dangerous dad and mom or at all times come from damaged properties.
“I feel that when myself and different StripTokers put ourselves on the market, it’s opening a approach for lots of different intercourse staff and dancers who won’t have usually come out and are available forth about being a dancer due to concern of judgment,” skinfluencer Sky Hopscotch defined.
Goblincore
It’s but unclear if Goblincore was among the many 12 months’s greatest or worst tendencies, however the phenomenon definitely captured the TikTok zeitgeist. The hashtag racked up hundreds of millions of shares as folklore followers flooded the platform with movies celebrating these elfin-eared fantasy baddies.
Content material ranged from cosplay, contouring suggestions for the green-skinned, coven dances and different goblin-related pursuits resembling an internet Renaissance Honest.
In a single Bigfoot-evoking clip, a Goblincore adherent “encounters” one among these sapphire-skinned Orclings nibbling on a plant of their backyard.
