this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
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The Onion and other satire w/ layers
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So let's talk about the Tide Pod Challenge.
Proctor & Gamble released Tide Pods in 2012, and almost immediately poison control centers started getting calls about mostly toddlers but some elderly dementia patients that bit into one thinking it was candy. It became something of a joke, videos with a very similar format to the Grimace Shake Meme, remember that, were filmed, someone would pretend to eat or even cook tide pods, smash cut to them dead or writhing in pain. CollegeHumor did a skit on it, and then our boys at The Onion ran an article in 2015 titled "So Help Me God, I’m Going To Eat One Of Those Multicolored Detergent Pods"
In 2016 teens start actually daring each other to eat tide pods. 53 cases of intentional ingestion by teenagers are recorded in 2016 and another 53 in 2017.
In early January 2018, major news outlets start running their typical fearmongering pieces about "Teenagers are eating tide pods: A dangerous new trend." January of 2018 sees 83 cases alone.
These satire sites and the actual news networks did basically nothing but fan the flames and they should probably not fucking do that.
Though I would like to nominate the galaxy brains at Proctor & Gamble for this year's Thomas Midgley Jr. Award for Absurdly Destructive Chemical Engineering. Only you would think to package caustic laundry detergent with pointlessly colorful liquid in bite-sized packs, and then keep producing them for years to come as kids were increasingly injured by this product, with only minor changes to the packaging offered as a solution. Al Qaeda wishes they could have hurt as many American children as you, P&G. Congratulations on your achievement.
If you're still alive, congrats, you survived the tide pod fitness test and many others! Can you survive the ongoing "don't fall in love with AI and then kill yourself when it generates tokens advising you to do so" challenge??