As much as many of us have been trying to avoid this news story, it’s becoming, unfortunately, almost unavoidable in the sense that it just won’t go away.
Let’s talk about Tide Pods.
Now, teenagers have always been great at doing stupid stuff, but the recently publicized Tide Pod “challenge” is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen hit the human race. Really. So teenagers are challenging one another to eat these small capsules of detergent, either by biting into them cold or cooking them first in a frying pan, and the footage was being streamed on YouTube, before the site’s administrators stepped in to remove the offending content.
In 2018, poison control centers have encountered 39 cases of “intentional misuse,” according to the Associated Press.
And despite the fact that eating the detergent pods can cause seizures, respiratory arrest and even death, for some reason, this won’t go away… to the point where, earlier this week, Tide manufacturer Procter & Gamble is responding publicly again, this time with a blog from its CEO, David Taylor. Taylor explains that he’s a father himself and assures readers that P&G is working with its partners “to do what we can to stop this dangerous trend, including ensuring social media networks are removing videos that glorify this harmful behavior,” and “partnering with advocacy and industry groups to help spread the word that this is dangerous behavior not to be copied.”
But he also asks the adults in the room to take a minute and talk to the teens in their lives about what matters – their lives and their health, not YouTube views. Speaking of YouTube, P&G first attacked the issue by creating a PSA with Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski who answers the question of whether one should eat a Tide Pod.
