It's no surprise that there is another dangerous challenge going viral on TikTok. Now, we're talking about cooking chicken with medicine.
The hashtag #sleepychicken is trending on social media because of a user who decided it was a good idea to cook their chicken in NyQuil cold medicine.
Yes, it’s as stupid and dangerous as it sounds.
Cooking any medication to begin with is dangerous as you risk changing its structure into something different and potentially more dangerous, according to a Sept. 15 article by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The FDA stated in the same article that the vapors emitted from medicine when it is cooked can cause harmful damage to the person consuming the chicken.
This isn't the first time that a stupid challenge has gone viral on TikTok.
In 2018, the “Tide Pod challenge” surfaced on TikTok.
These trends of what can damage someone’s body continues.
Another issue that these dangerous challenges bring up is the age group that is dominant on TikTok.
According to a Sept. 30 Wallaroo Media blog post , TikTok users aged 10-19 makeup 32.5% of its user base, whereas users aged 20-29 make up 29.5%.
Wallaroo Media is a digital marketing and advertising agency, specializing and working in scaling brands, according to its webpage.
Kids are heavily involved in social media, and TikTok is one of the most popular platforms.
Children are peer-pressured into doing what everyone else is doing online.
In 2021, a horrific TikTok trend named the “blackout challenge” took the lives of at least seven children. That challenge encourages users to strangle themselves with belts and purse strings until they pass out according to a July 7 article published by The Verge.
It's scary how quickly something that dangerous can become viral and how many people come across it on their feed.
Social media continues to “control” its users by popularizing dangerous stunts.
According to a June 18, 2020 article posted by TikTok, once a user lands on a for-you-page, they are given videos that are based on their preferences through their interactions on the app.
TikTok has an easy-to-use search engine, as users can simply type in the hashtag “#” symbol with words following directly after, to see all the videos – ranked from most liked to least liked – that are tagged on its platform.
If somebody wanted to, they could simply type hashtag #sleepychicken to see all the videos that are related to the sleepy chicken challenge.
From making songs trend on TikTok to making a dance so viral that Fortnite has to include it in its games, social media understands how to take command of its audience.
When users see something trending on TikTok, they go and tell their friends, and those friends go and tell their own friends, and so on. Once word gets out to such a large number of people, it can easily take over social media.
History cannot repeat itself every few years with dangerous challenges coming and going. The hashtag #sleepychicken challenge, along with other dangerous challenges, need to be put to sleep.
