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Tide Pod Challenge Causes False Rumor To Spread: Tide Pods Aren’t Being Discontinued

By Trisha Faulkner
Published on: 14:18 PST, Jan 21, 2018

If you’ve spent any time on social media as of late, chances are good you’ve come across a meme or two regarding Tide pods. Some of the more popular ones floating around social media right now include Tide flavored Oreos and a joke about how people thought we would have flying cars by now, but we are eating laundry soap instead. Unfortunately, these jokes emerged because of a bizarre internet trend called the Tide Pod Challenge.

What Is The Tide Pod Challenge, Anyway?

As the Inquisitr, has already explained, the Tide Pod Challenge is similar to other challenges – such as the Ice Bucket Challenge – during which individuals record themselves doing something someone else challenged them to do. The only difference being how much more dangerous the Tide Pod Challenge is by comparison to the Ice Bucket Challenge.

In order to participate in the Tide Pod Challenge, an individual must record themselves consuming a Tide Pod.

While social media platforms – such as Facebook and YouTube – are taking steps to remove videos of individuals participating in the challenge by consuming a Tide Pod, the dangerous viral trend has parents and medical experts everywhere concerned.

A Rumor Started To Spread That Tide Was Discontinuing Tide Pods

According to Snopes, a rumor started to spread on social media that Tide was going to discontinue Tide Pods in order to save lives. A screenshot surfaced of what looked like a tweet from none other than the Tide twitter page.

“We regret to inform you, we will be removing Tide Pods from shelves starting February 1st. It’s been a good run, but we can’t risk lives over having clean laundry.”

Snopes notes a quick search on Tide’s twitter page will reveal the laundry soap company never posted such a tweet. There have been several individuals who have taken to Twitter to joke about how horrifying it would be if Tide did decide to cancel the Tide Pods as they have no idea how much liquid laundry soap to use.

Some Twitter users also noted they wanted the Tide Pod Challenge to end because they didn’t want anything bad to happen to their favorite laundry soap.

Tide Also Took To Social Media To Respond To The Bizarre Viral Trend

About a week ago, Tide posted a video on Twitter noting that eating a Tide Pod was a bad idea. The video has since accumulated more than 7.8 million views.

The video featured Rob Gronkowski – the tight end of the New England Patriots – noting that Tide Pods were for washing clothing, not eating.

Because of their bright colors and lack of a chemical smell, the consumption of Tide Pods has always been a problem for children under the age of five. But, this Tide Pod Challenge puts teenagers and young adults at risk as well.

Fortunately for those who prefer to use Tide Pods as their laundry detergent of choice, it does not appear as if Tide has any plans of discontinuing their product because of the trend.

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