Clout and kids don't mix really. And if
you just put both of these elements in an uncontrolled environment, I have a feeling
arson is going to be the least of your problems. Hi, and welcome back to me and talking about
whatever I want. Today I want to talk about TikTok challenges and how they're ruining my
life. Well, not my life but most of the lives of the people trying them. It is however, ruining my
day. But before that of course, I'd like to give a comment shout out from my last video. Yesterday's
comment shout out goes to Marble Water, who said, "Plot twist, D'Angelo isn't as old as he says, his
stylist is just making him look older." You know, I wish that was the case because if I wasn't
this old, I wouldn't have to pay taxes. This baby face right here works on everyone
except the IRS. But that comment was of course the reference to my last video, which is
doing super well. The whole channel was doing super well. We just passed 69,000 subscribers.
Seriously, if you are a bored, go look at my Social Blade. It is popping right now. And since I
like to keep it that way, I'm going to talk about TikTok. But to be honest, I'm kind of tired
of like the typical TikTok reaction videos, where you find someone really weird on
TikTok and then you just talk about them for 10 minutes. I enjoy watching them every now
and then, but I feel it's been done, right? We get it. There's a lot of really weird people on
TikTok with a lot of followers. So while this is most certainly going to be a TikTok reaction
video, I'm not going to be reacting to specific people. I thought what if I reacted to specific
challenges. See, I don't use TikTok frequently but I do read a lot of articles and anytime TikTok
pops up in the news, it's not for a good reason. So allow me to present these TikTok challenges,
which I have curated, curated, curated from my various news reading adventures. The penny
challenge. Oh boy. Where do I start? So basically in the penny challenge, you take a foe... Oh wait,
wait, wait, wait, let me clarify something. Do not try any of the challenges that you see in this
video. I know most of you are intelligent enough to not even want to try this stuff but every
single challenge I'm about to go over is extremely dumb, just beyond dumb, like mind-numbingly
stupid. So please do not try this stuff. But anyway, the pity challenge involves a phone
charger and you basically take the phone charger and you plug it in but not all the way and then
you wedge a penny in there between the charger and the electrical outlet in the hopes that you
will create sparks. Now, I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, heck I feel my whole
childhood, my parents were telling me, "You do not play around with the electrical outlets."
Like, is that just me? Is that something we're not doing with generation alpha? Because last
time I checked, staying away from electrical outlets was just common sense. But of course that
didn't stop anyone and we got videos like this. In here.
No no no no. In the hole at the top. From the top.
I'm nobody's parent yet, but I'm just trying to put myself in the headspace of if I
walked in on my kid doing the pity challenge for his TikTok, I think in that moment,
I wouldn't be disappointed with the kid. I would be angry and disappointed with myself
because clearly I failed as not just a parent, but a human being. So the way I discovered this
TikTok challenge was via this article from this local NBC station. And this article brings
up a pretty good point, which I didn't think about it's arson. According to Captain Jonathan
Evans, with the Myrtle Beach Fire Department, it's just arson. Basically what they're doing
is starting a fire. Whether they think it's fun or not, it's arson and that's a big penalty that
could ruin their lives. Now that he mentions it, if you are purposely trying to cause sparks then
your pretty much purposely trying to start a fire. In other words, this TikTok is literally illegal.
Why the way the start? So of course it wouldn't be the year 2020 if people didn't run into illegal
challenges because of a TikTok. According to the CNN article two, 15 year old boys are facing
charges of attempted arson and malicious damage to property under $1,200. And the reason for this
is because they tried this at their school and so authorities at the school found the electrical
outlet and it was like burned and there was a penny melted into it. So I guess the kids' parents
are being charged for them destroying the outlet. But everyone involved is really lucky. Those kids
could have burned down that entire wall. In fact, they could have burned down the entire
school. So the fact that the damages totaled under $1,200 and both of the kids made
it out alive. It's a pretty big coincidence. Fire Chief, Edward Bradley of the Plymouth Fire
Department says, "I do think students comprehend the reality that they can be electrocuted or
start a fire. Parents need to talk to their children and tell them if you see this stuff,
don't try to imitate." It's scary to think that the desire for TikTok clout could override
the basic programming that every kid has, which is not to stick metal objects near electrical
outlets. So yeah, that's the penny challenge. The flash challenge. So if the penny challenge
was sticking a penny in the electrical socket, then what does the flash challenge refer to? How
about shining a bright light directly into your eye with the intention of changing its color.
Now, if that sounds insane to you, it's because it is. Basically someone posted the TikTok to the
platform where they claimed that if you shine your camera phones flash into your eye and then put
that video on TikTok and put the S5 filter over it, then it will change the color of your eyes.
Now I don't think I even have to explain why it's a terrible idea to purposely shine light directly
into your retinas but why would that stop anybody. So like the others, I found out about this from
an article. So yeah, apparently they started on TikTok, but now it's making its way through
Twitter, according to this Daily Dot article. And people think that it's helping them find
their true eye color in these TikToks(silence). The camera flashes brighter than I remember.
Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch Ouch. Ouch. Would you look at that, my eyes are still brown.
Oh, the bleach challenge. Now this is a name that I'm giving to it because it doesn't really have
like a hashtag, but if shining light directly into your eye, wasn't enough eye strain for you. How
about the bleach challenge in which you mix leach, jelly, hand sanitizer and the shaving cream in a
plastic Ziploc bag and then hold it up directly to your eye in the hopes that this will, you guessed
it, change your eye color. Now, if you're hearing this and you're thinking, Hmm, yeah, it will
change your eye color to red because it will be irritated. That is exactly what happened so much
to where the person who created that original one recorded a new one in which they showed that the
original challenge caused them to get puffy eye. So that little magic in the original video is
just that it's edited. Obviously this is not changing anybody's eye color. However, that
didn't stop more people from doing this. So the way I discovered this was actually via
this Newsweek article and something really disturbing popped out. So the person who
originally posted this caption, according to this Newsweek article is actually an adult. This
article says that he's a college student. And so he posted the original TikTok not the one where
he admitted that it was fake with the caption, "Tell me you guys used to do this to #foryoupage
#viral #brighteyechallenge." You tried to tell me that we have a fully grown man coming onto
TikTok, app full of kids and trying to pass off, putting in harsh chemicals near your eyes as some
sort of challenge that everybody should be trying. You know, it's one thing if kids are coming
up with this, but if we have adults going onto the platform and disseminating this dangerous
stuff throughout the app full of kids, I mean, you should just be ashamed of yourself or is
it likes that you get on TikTok where if it was that worth all those kids who wound up with
puffy eyes? I sure hope it was, but yeah, that's the bleach or the bright eye challenge. It's like,
you couldn't even come up with a good name for it. Oh me. Oh my, the cereal challenge. Just a
bit of a warning. This one's really gross. Basically involves two people and one person lays
back on the platform like a counter or whatever and this other person pours a bowl of cereal
in that person's mouth and then begins to eat it like this. Look, I don't care if we're in a
committed relationship or not, I am not about to eat cereal out of your mouth. Literally the
most disgusting thing I've heard today anyway. And it's gross enough with people doing this,
but someone posted this one TikTok with a dog. I care.I cut it off before it got really gross.
But yes, it does keep going. And yes, it's exactly what you think it was. So of course, again, I
discovered this via this New York post article, actually, you know what? This article actually
brought up a really good point that I didn't immediately consider this entire challenge is
an enormous choking hazard. Like you are at an angle with liquid just sitting in your mouth. If
you make one wrong move, something is going to go down the wrong pipe. In fact, this New York post
article actually has one of the serial challenge entries from Bretman Rock of all people.
Oh my God.Oh my God Bretman He tries to pass it off as a joke, but that is a
really dangerous situation. Laying on your back coughing up liquid? You know what, it seems
like the lower your chances of survival are for these TikTok challenges, the higher your
chances of them going viral are. So if that's not an indication that we just need to burn the
entire app, I don't know what it is. And you know, as much as I think Brentman Rock is kind of
funny, I have a huge issue with doing stuff like this to your giant audience and not
disclosing at least at the very least how dangerous it was and how much of a bad idea
it was. But nevertheless, he can't pass up on those hashtag serial challenge views, now can you.
All right. So according to this USA Today article which also briefly touches on the other challenges
that we talked about, we have the soy sauce challenge in which you dip... Hold up. You know
what guys I think I'm done with this video. No, but in all seriousness what's I guess the point
of this challenge is that there are receptors down there, but they're not taste receptors.
So wait, what do the challenges look like? Just went and got some soy sauce and we are going
to do this little science experiment together and don't be nasty in the comments. This is the
human anatomy. Oh my God, I can taste this soy. You know what, I don't think I want to
talk about this challenge.All right, so the last One I have up today is of course the plan
B challenge also known as the morning after pill challenge. Now, if you don't know what a plan B
or the morning after pill is, I'm sure someone in the comments will be happy to let you know,
but basically this show started off innocently enough in my opinion, someone just uploaded a
TikTok of them dismantling a pregnancy(silence). someone answered that it was a plan B pill. Now I
can only assume that the people saying that we're joking or at least I can hope that they were
joking. But for some reason, people started believing it, like, look at some of these TikToks.
No, wait, there actually is... there is a plan B pill.
Oh my God. Are you serious. Wow! Didn't believe it.
I think the worst thing about it was that these people weren't just saying, "Ooh, what's this,"
they were straight up just putting in the caption, "Oh, hey, pregnancy tests have plan B pills in
them." So I was alerted about this challenge via this Daily Dot article and here's the thing.
These plan B challenge videos were spreading so far that Clear Blue, the company who manufactures
those little pregnancy tests has to come out with this statement, "Clear Blue pregnancy tests do
not contain plan B pills. All our tests have a small tablet, which is included to absorb moisture
and should not be eaten. If accidentally ingested, we ask people to please seek medical advice."
So the thing is, it's dangerous on two levels, right? To think, oh, I don't need a morning
after pill because there's one in my pregnancy test is obviously terrible. But then to
encourage people to ingest things that are not designed to be swallowed is just as bad.
So yeah, the plan B test is just a grim reminder of how quickly misinformation spreads on TikTok
and among a demographic of people that are so young and quick to believe everything that they
see, it's a mess. So none of them brought up these challenges. I just kind of went wrap it up
by calling out TikTok for allowing this stuff to happen in the first place. Now I am in no way
suggesting that TikTok has a responsibility to sensor the users on the platform. However,
I absolutely believe there's nothing wrong with disabling these hashtags. If you know
that the penny challenge involves arson, then maybe you would just disable the penny
challenge hashtag that way those people when they get views and they wouldn't have an
incentive to start fires for TikTok, maybe you could just put a little text box, "Hey, do not
ingest these because they're not real pills." Again, I don't think it's TikTok fault that
these things started and that they were spreading so quickly. But if it's gotten to the
point where fire departments and pregnancy test companies are releasing statements about this
behavior, I really don't see why TikTok can't at least contribute a little something here and
there. But honestly, what would I expect from what has to be the shadiest company in the
entire world. In conclusion clout and kids don't mix really and if you just put both of
these elements in an uncontrolled environment, I've a feeling arson is going to be the least
of your problems. But I can't really say I'm surprised. I mean, in previous years we've had
this cinnamon challenge, the ice salt challenge, we even had the fire challenge. It's just going
to keep getting worse and worse and more and more out of pocket until eventually we have, I don't
know, the coronavirus challenge or something. You just go pretend to have coronavirus
in a public area. That can already be real and a thing that somebody has tried, right?
You know what, humanity is not really that great anyway. So if we're all going to fall out the
hands of TikTok challenges, honestly, who cares.
