‘Condom Snorting Challenge’ Is the Latest Dangerous Viral Craze

You may just be finishing tide pod detox and recovery, but your children have found another creative way to get you to take them to the local emergency room: snorting condoms.

Like so many of the worst ideas, this one is all too simple: unwrap a condom, shove it up your nose, and inhale until the inflated rubber comes out of your mouth. While the idea has been floating around like a condom in a toilet for a while now, its recent social media virulence has brought on a host of would-be Internet celebrity copycats.

San Antonio drugs and alcohol prevention teacher Stephen Enriquez told KABB-TV that “these days our teens are doing everything for likes, views, and subscribers.” He cautioned: “As graphic as it is, we have to show parents because teens are going online looking for challenges and recreating them.” Because of this, Enriquez has also begun including such trends in his parental guidance.

Of course, this is just another in a long line of viral internet stunts. From planking to the “tide pod challenge,” seemingly silly activity displayed in the name of possible online fame has been responsible for injuries and even death.

And while the condom snorting challenge seems to have far less serious ramifications, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Associate Professor of International Health  Bruce Y. Lee wrote in Forbes that “anything else that goes up your nose can damage the sensitive inner lining of your nose, cause an allergic reaction, or result in an infection,” or worse, cause the unwitting youth to choke on it.

There is, of course, an extremely simple solution: please, just don’t do it.