You know, I haven't actually heard of anyone eating these; I didn't think anyone would be dumb enough to take this seriously to be quite frankly honest.

If you're a kid and see a meme about eating a Tide Pod, which almost EVERYONE knows is a laundry detergent that is poisonous, the kid will pretty much know “yeah, I shouldn't eat this or I'll die”. Even then, the kid should be monitored by their parents if they're young enough to just shove any old laundry detergent in their mouth. If they actually do this, it's either the kid's fault for not thinking it through if they're old enough, and the parent's fault if their kid is under the age of, let's say, 5.

WolfCat67 wrote:

You know, I haven't actually heard of anyone eating these; I didn't think anyone would be dumb enough to take this seriously to be quite frankly honest.

If you're a kid and see a meme about eating a Tide Pod, which almost EVERYONE knows is a laundry detergent that is poisonous, the kid will pretty much know “yeah, I shouldn't eat this or I'll die”. Even then, the kid should be monitored by their parents if they're young enough to just shove any old laundry detergent in their mouth. If they actually do this, it's either the kid's fault for not thinking it through if they're old enough, and the parent's fault if their kid is under the age of, let's say, 5.

Yeah but people are actually going to the hospital and I think someone died because there eating them. Kids and young people can easily be persuaded to do many things that might not be the best… Especially the demographic scratch appeals to.

i truly doubt deaths occurred because of the meme, tide pods could look like candy to young children, so the ones that don't know any better probably looked at it and said “look at these candies mommy has been keeping from me” and ate it. the meme existing at the same time is just an unfortunate coincidence. according to a simple google search, its not an uncommon urge to want to eat them anyways.
“visual, odor and textual sensory information these pods express match nutritionally-dense fruit. It’s got the oleic gleam of an avocado, but bright carotenoid-rich coloration like a berry that tells you to eat it, It tends to smell sweet and slightly floral, enhancing that effect, similarly, when you hold it, it’s quiet dense, but very soft and liquid, which tells your mind that this is fruit which has either high sugar or high fat content and almost no cellulose to it.”

If you're not sure if it's allowed on Scratch, give it a report or contact the ST anyway; they will decide, and there's no punishment for accidentally reporting something unless you do it repeatedly

pinkieofthepies wrote:

in my personal opinion, if you are old enough to read, and understand things, and have access to the internet, your parents or somebody else should have told you that doing things like drinking bleach or eating cleaning supplies is bad.

Search up on the news for “tide pod” and there will be alot of articles of teenagers eating a detergent, and you probably will lose faith in humanity.

G---H wrote:

I'm actually kind of disgusted that people are making a joke of this. What a disgrace, this challenge can literally kill you if you take in those chemicals.

I guess you could argue that it could be marked NFE. These kinds of memes play off of dark humor, and it isn't a crime to use dark humor in things. However, this site, who has a target audience of children, shouldn't allow dark humor content to exist freely on here. It should either be monitored heavily, or be erased from the public.

At our recent moderator meeting we discussed this and came to the same conclusion. We will be removing it from Scratch when we come across it.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful feedback on this issue.