If you’ve been anyplace close to social media, native information, or late-night discuss reveals in the previous couple of days, you’ve most likely heard one thing about “Nyquil Chicken,” a supposedly viral TikTok “challenge” that’s precisely what it feels like: cooking hen in a marinade of chilly medication.
News in regards to the supposed pattern is normally accompanied by vomit-inducing photographs of uncooked hen simmering in darkish inexperienced syrup. It’s each disgusting and, because the FDA just lately reminded the general public, simply as poisonous because it appears. But it seems Nyquil Chicken was neither new, nor significantly viral, and the FDA’s bizarrely-timed warning could have backfired, making the meme extra common than ever.
First, a little bit of historical past: As reporter Ryan Borderick factors out in his e-newsletter Garbage Day, Nyquil Chicken originated as a joke on 4Chan in 2017. The meme briefly resurfaced in January the place it received some traction on TikTok earlier than as soon as once more fading away.
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Then, final week, the FDA — inexplicably — issued a press launch warning in regards to the risks of cooking hen in Nyquil. In a discover titled “A Recipe for Danger: Social Media Challenges Involving Medicines,” the FDA refers to it as a “recent” pattern. But they cite no current examples, and it’s unclear why they opted to push out a warning greater than eight months after the meme had first appeared on TikTok.
Now, in what we are able to solely hope will probably be a precious lesson on unintended penalties, we all know that it was doubtless the FDA’s warning about Nyquil hen that pushed this “challenge” to new ranges of virality, at the least on TikTok. TikTok has now confirmed that on September 14th, the day earlier than the FDA discover, there have been solely 5 searches for “Nyquil chicken” within the app. But by September twenty first, that quantity skyrocketed “by more than 1,400 times,” in keeping with BuzzFeed News, which first reported the TikTok search knowledge.
TikTok, which has just lately taken steps to restrict the unfold of each harmful “challenges” and “alarmist warnings” about hoaxes, is now blocking searches for “Nyquil Chicken.” Searches now direct customers to sources encouraging customers to “stop and take a moment to think” earlier than pursuing a doubtlessly harmful “challenge.”
As each BuzzFeed and Gizmodo be aware, there’s little proof that individuals are really cooking hen in Nyquil, a lot much less really ingesting it. That’s factor as a result of, because the FDA makes very clear, doing so will not be solely extraordinarily gross, however extremely poisonous. But the entire thing is yet one more instance of why we must always all be extra skeptical of panic-inducing viral “challenges.”