TIDE POD CHALLENGE -- the trend that killed people

 

Consumption of Tide Pods is the act of ingesting the Tide Pods brand's laundry detergent pods. Since 2012, Procter & Gamble has been selling a line of laundry detergent pods under the brand name Tide.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have classified Tide Pods as a health risk because, like most detergents, they can be fatal if consumed. According to media reports, youngsters and people with dementia who mistake the pods for candy may put their health or lives in jeopardy if they consume them. More than 7,000 instances of young toddlers eating laundry pods were reported to poison control centres between 2012 and 2013, and by 2017, six fatalities were linked to Procter & Gamble laundry pod ingestion. 

Late in December 2017, Tide Pods started to become popular online. The "Tide Pod Challenge," which comprised a dare to purposefully ingest the pods, was inspired by their appearance in Internet memes in the beginning of 2018.  Early in 2018, media reports indicated that soon after the product's release, the use of Tide Pods turned become a hot subject on the Internet. Eating Tide Pods eventually turned into a meme, with The Onion's 2015 piece and a 2013 thread on the Straight Dope online being credited with its inception. "Why does a Tide Pod look so wonderful to eat?" was a tweet from 2012 that Mashable cited in an article about the subject.  Instead of the meme's 2017 form that depicts Tide Pods as a delectable dish, the Straight Dope thread's conversation was more focused on kids unintentionally ingesting Tide Pods. 

Eating Tide Pods became a common web joke in the years that followed. With a message made on Reddit's "intrusive thoughts" subreddit in July 2017, posts started to favour "Tide Pods" to more general phrases like "laundry pods." The post's title "Take a bite out of a Tide Pod. Do it ", which appeared the following day in another Onion article. 

Tumblr posts helped the meme spread, but in December 2017, a number of viral tweets greatly increased the meme's popularity.  The pods were described as a "forbidden fruit" in numerous posts. The Tide Pods were the subject of jokes about how "wonderful" they looked and photos with the pods on top of food. By "pok[ing] fun] at the idea of swallowing the pods, while (typically) stopping short of actually doing so," Vox summarised the meme.  The article pointed out that the product's caution to not eat the pods is part of the appeal of talking, speculating, and making jokes about doing so. 

Following the meme's meteoric rise to fame in 2018, media outlets began writing about individuals who took part in the Tide Pod Challenge, an online competition that requires participants to drink Tide Pods. The challenge was reportedly popular among teenagers; participants would record themselves gagging and chewing on pods before challenging others to do the same. These videos were placed on YouTube in some cases. Before consuming the pods, some teenagers even boiled them. 

BuzzFeed News cited a Procter & Gamble  spokeswoman in response to the meme, underlining the use of their pods and the health dangers children face: "The security of those who utilise our products is the most essential thing to us. Our laundry pacs are highly concentrated detergents that are used safely every day in millions of homes to clean clothes.  They ought to be kept closed, out of the reach of youngsters, and only used to clean clothes. We have consistently taken the initiative to give customers the appropriate usage instructions and tools so they may utilise the product properly." Tide said, "They [pods] should not be toyed with, regardless of the situation, even if it is done in jest.

When discussing the meme on Good Morning America, Ann Marie Buerkle from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission stated that "kids attempting to be funny are now putting themselves in danger by consuming this dangerous material."

"This is what started out as a joke on the internet, but now it's just gone too far," Buerkle continued.

Following the spread of the meme, YouTube and Facebook began eliminating (and, in the case of YouTube, age-restricting) videos that showed people eating Tide Pods or videos that discussed doing so. After the meme gained traction on Twitter and Reddit, other media outlets published stories exploring the phenomena and advising readers not to consume Tide Pods. 

Up to 2022, 2018 saw the fewest instances of detergent pod ingestion recorded to the AAPCC. Ingestion is the primary cause of laundry detergent pod exposure instances. As a result, the most frequent side effects are nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea. Ingestion may also result in "dysphagia secondary to oropharyngeal and esophageal mucosal burns and ulcers." Seizures, harm to the respiratory system, abnormalities of the kidneys, and abnormalities of the electrolytes are some further effects of pod intake.

 Eating these pods is a fatal thing yet people still do this to be trendy and  relatable. It's ironic how Tide got a lot of product endorsement but in the worst way one could. Trends are supposed to be fun and engaging but this trend was engaging in the most fatal and traumatic way  and people were stupid enough to continue on it and make it bigger and unsafer than it should've ever
been.