Similar to the “Tide Pod Challenge,” parents and officials are reportedly concerned about another new, yet strange, trend that they fear is sweeping social media.
According to KABB, educators in San Antonio, Texas, are informing parents of the “Condom-Snorting Challenge” or “Condom Challenge.” The challenge involves someone snorting an unwrapped condom through one nostril and pulling it out through their mouth. In many cases, these challenges are posted online in an attempt to go viral.
“Our teens are doing everything for likes, views, and subscribers,” state education specialist Stephen Enriquez told the news station.
“As graphic as it is, we have to show parents because teens are going online looking for challenges and recreating them.”
Bruce Lee, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote in a Forbes column last week that someone partaking in the challenge risks damaging the sensitive inner lining of their nose.
“Now, imagine stuffing up your nose something that is larger than your nostril opening and designed not to break. That would be as foolish as, well, trying to inhale a condom. The condom could easily get stuck in your nose or your throat, blocking your breathing or causing you to choke,” he wrote.
After citing several studies that advised against inhaling condoms, Lee called attention to the fact that the experience would be “uncomfortable and potentially quite painful.”
While the Condom Challenge has caused a hysteria of sorts, Snopes claimed that the panic might be for naught. The fact-checking website found that very few videos showing teens taking the challenge were posted online in 2018 as the trend went viral back in 2013.
Snopes suspected that the recent and unexplainable popularity of the Tide Pod Challenge has led media outlets to be hyperactive in warning parents of other dangerous trends that teens have recorded and posted to social media.
Snopes concluded, “Let the record show that while we pooh-pooh the media’s claims that condom snorting rises to the level of a ‘trend’, we urge anyone tempted to try it to think hard about the possible consequences, which could, in fact, be dire.”
[Featured Image: YouTube/Hollywood Life Screenshot]
