Almost everyone that has access to the internet has heard of or has TikTok, a popular social media app with short videos of people dancing, doing fun challenges, cooking, etc. 

However, this social media app has started going too far in some of the “challenges” that people have done, even causing deaths to get more likes and views. Today, we will be going over the most lethal and violent challenges and trends and how horrid the consequences are.

The Benadryl Challenge

This infamous pain reliever created a lethal challenge – taking an enormous amount of this medication to see hallucinations. Taking too much Benadryl can lead to serious side effects, even death, which caused one 15-year-old girl to die from taking too much of it.

The Black-Out Challenge

This challenge has been reported to kill many children because the challenge revolved around choking yourself until you blacked out for a short period. Many died from lack of oxygen due to suffocation. However, his choking game did not just originate on TikTok, as it had multiple variants in the past.

The Silhouette Challenge

While this one was not necessarily deadly nor dangerous to people physically, this challenge revolved around dancing to a red filter, only allowing people to see your silhouette. However, people took this filter and found a way to remove it, seeing young women and teens dancing with no way to cover it up, paving the way for pedophiles to start their obsession, making this challenge all the more creepy.

The Penny Challenge

When you have open electricity, the last thing you want to do is electrocute yourself. However, this became a ‘normal’ thing to do in the Penny Challenge, in which people were supposed to slide a penny in between the prongs of a power outlet. Being an electrical conductor, these pennies made it so that some faced serious electric burns, while also having to deal with sparks, or even starting fires. 

The Tooth File Challenge

This challenge revolved around one simple concept: Filing your teeth with a nail file. It is pretty easy to see the problem here, as only dentists know how to properly file down teeth: and it is NOT with a nail file. I repeat: it is NOT with a nail file. This can cause problems with tooth enamel and tooth damage in the long run.

The Cereal Challenge

Even if we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic, this challenge is enough to gross you out from eating cereal again. The challenge is to pour milk and cereal into a friend’s mouth, then have another person eat this cereal out of the other person’s mouth. The mouth is used as a bowl for cereal. Occasionally dogs were also used to lick the cereal out of the holder’s mouth, making this an even more disgusting challenge.

The Skull-Breaker Challenge

Yep, you read this one correctly. It is probably one of the most violent, dangerous TikTok challenges discussed in this article. This challenge revolves around the idea of 3 people jumping together. As the person in the middle jumps, the two people on the sides kick out the middle person’s legs from under them, causing them to fall backward, ultimately causing skull damage, paralysis, and even death.

The Pee and Poop Challenges

Y’all, humanity began going insane throughout quarantine, and I think it is proven that some people need to get off social media due to these disgusting and disturbing challenges. The pee challenge was simple – follow human nature and pee your pants, not even bothering to clean them or use the bathroom. The poop challenge is cruel. It revolves around a parent calling out for their kid, claiming they need toilet paper as they ran out in the bathroom. As the toddler brings over toilet paper, the parent smudges their human feces on the child and films their reaction. Although some used Nutella, it is gross and disturbing to watch either way.

The Coronavirus Challenge

This one should not even be a thing. Yet, if we know the world and social media, people will do dumb stuff for likes. Amidst a pandemic, one woman decided to start the Coronavirus challenge in which she went into airplanes and decided to lick the toilet seats. Gross.

The Autism Challenge

This challenge disturbs me in so many ways, not only continuing the stigma but also glorifying mental illnesses in a way. This challenge, meant to spread awareness of autism, instead created the #AutismChallenge hashtag. In videos, people would be seen purposefully flailing their arms in the air, suddenly dropping to the floor, and even engaging in sexual misconduct to represent people with autism and their actions, when in reality, it was only making fun of it.

Slap a Teacher Challenge

This challenge was very straightforward: slap a teacher. A lot of consequences came from this as well, as you can imagine, such as calls home to parents and even some arrests. This challenge caused a lot of violence and often led others to follow suit. This caused a lot of health issues as well, as a lot of people aren’t always aware of what preexisting health conditions their teachers may have.

National Shoot Up Your School Day

Amidst all of the violent threats occurring in the area, especially with winter break, National Shoot Up Your School Day went viral on TikTok, causing many students to stay home on Friday, December 17, out of fear of getting into a school shooting, worrying many teachers and other groups, wreaking havoc upon the distressed school system.

Other Infamous Challenges from the Past

This section is to highlight some of the previous challenges that were known, causing deadly side effects as well. Some of these include the Cinnamon Challenge, which was about eating a spoonful of cinnamon. The dryness of the cinnamon led to choking and the stopping of the lungs, causing serious side effects. The Tide Pod challenge was simple: Eat a tide pod. However, these things have several dangerous chemicals inside them that should not be ingested. The Salt Challenge revolved around eating as much salt as possible from a full container, which is not only disgusting but also extremely bad for your health, as you are ingesting too much sodium, which your body can’t handle. The Disappearing Challenge was based on the idea that people would disappear without a trace for 48 hours to see what would happen. This led to several different arrests and too much legal trouble for people, all revolving around some stupid internet challenge.

So, I hope if there is anything you have learned today, TikTok is a dangerous place as much as it can be fun for people to engage with their community, people need to watch out before they do things that could cost them their life, just for a few more likes. Have any additions to this list? Which one grossed you out the most? Let me know!

Stay safe!

~ Carissa

Works Cited

Nguyen, Binh. “Don’t Let Your Kids Try These 9 Dangerous TikTok Trends – CyberPurify.” Cyber Purify, cyberpurify.com/knowledge/9-dangerous-tiktok-trends/.

“The 23 Craziest TikTok Challenges so Far – and the Ordeals They’ve Caused.” New York Post, 16 Feb. 2021, nypost.com/article/craziest-tiktok-challenges-so-far/.

Unsplash. “IPhone XS on White Table Photo.” Unsplash.com, 2020, unsplash.com/photos/q1n1LmoL4Es.