Internet meme culture can be blamed for a lot of things, especially injuries and death. People create weird and sometimes dangerous challenges that other people — mostly teens and 20-somethings — try only to come to some harm.
2018's Tide Pod challenge comes to mind when more than 7,000 idiots ingested Tide Pods because they looked like candy. It got so bad that Facebook took down all videos about the Tide Pod challenge but left up all the hate speech, misogyny, and racism.
In fact, their new slogan became "Tide Pods: More dangerous than white nationalism."
Procter & Gamble also produced several PSAs urging people not to eat the deadly detergent.
"Sure, our Tide Pods LOOK like candy, but you shouldn't eat them, even though we're offering a 20% off coupon at your favorite supermarket. Now in new cinnamon flavor — I mean, scent."
In a desperate search for a new way to harm themselves, young Millennials and Gen Z then developed things like the Milk Crate Challenge.
That's where you stack several milk crates and then climb until the structure collapses, and your friends take a video of them laughing as you snap your collarbone.
And let's not forget the Banana Sprite Challenge, which involves wolfing down two bananas and pounding a whole can of Sprite without vomiting, which is nearly impossible.
Ah, young people. Is there anything you won't do on a dare?
Now, there's a cucumber shortage in Iceland that's being blamed on a cucumber salad TikTok craze.
I've lived a long time, and never once have I said, "You know, I really need to eat an entire cucumber."
Although, once, when I was around nine, I was in the mood for cucumber and ranch dressing. I figured out how to eat both of them without just slicing up a cucumber and dipping it into a bowl of ranch dressing. That was the old-fashioned way.
First, I cut off the end of the cucumber. Next, I took a long knife and cored the seeds out of the middle. Finally, I filled the center with ranch dressing.
Then, I could eat the cucumber and get a little ranch with every bite. It was genius!
It was stupid.
The first bite was a lot bigger than I expected, and it pulled away a chunk of the cucumber, sort of like when you bite an apple and a third of it comes away. Ranch dressing gushed out onto the kitchen floor.
I dropped the mess into a bowl and cleaned everything up before my parents got home. I ended up slicing up the cucumber anyway, and I never tried anything creative with vegetables again.
But now I do want to eat an entire cucumber, thanks to Moffitt.
Stupid Moffitt.
He's been making cucumber content since July, creating easy-to-follow recipes in minutes. He uses a mandoline slicer to slice up the cucumber into a deli container and adds other ingredients to make his recipes.
One recipe, jalapeño popper salad, is made with a cucumber, onions, jalapeño bits, bacon bits, cream cheese, and sour cream. Then he shakes it for several minutes, and BAM! Creamy cucumber and jalapeño salad.
Moffitt's recipes are so popular that he may actually be responsible for Iceland's cucumber shortage. One of Iceland's supermarket chains told the BBC that cucumber sales had doubled since cucumber salad recipes became popular and the farmers weren't able to keep up. The sales of sesame oil and chili oil had also doubled in the same time.
But Moffitt may be onto something: he's getting more and more people to eat cucumbers, which they apparently weren't doing before. The only thing missing is calling his cucumber recipes a challenge and telling people they could get seriously hurt eating them.
I bet we could trick young people into things that are good for them. What if social media influencers issued "challenges" for stuff we actually want young people to do more of?
We could have the Read More Books Challenge, where we challenge people to read one book a week and post videos of themselves doing it to TikTok.
Or the Eat Your Broccoli Challenge, where people take videos of themselves eating the little green trees. I will not be participating in that one because broccoli is terrible.
As a college professor, I would love to see someone start the Turn Your Assignments In On Time Challenge.
Parents whose kids are away at college would like to see the Call Your Mother More Often Challenge, where their sons and daughters call once a week rather than just texting for money.
For my part, I'm going to issue the Send Erik $20 Challenge. Post a video of you opening your favorite cash transfer app and sending me $20. Post it to your favorite social network and see how many of your friends you can get to follow suit.
Whoever gets the most friends to Send Erik $20, I'll send them a free cucumber.
Photo credit: Valentinhotels (Pixabay, Creative commons 0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.