When trying to come up with a destructive meme, the first thing I could think of was all the memes that were circulating the internet around the time of the “tide pod challenge.” It’s unknown when, where or how this “challenge” originated, but soon enough, videos and memes about tide pods were circulating the internet. I personally never saw any of the videos or pictures of people partaking in this “challenge,” but I do remember seeing a lot of memes about it on a couple of social media platforms, especially on Instagram. I couldn’t remember any specific memes that I saw when this was going on, but I did find a couple that capture the fundamental essence of the things being posted online at the time.
It doesn’t take much to understand why these types of memes and challenges are destructive and harmful. Challenges like this sent many people to the hospital. A few sources claim that in 2017 220 teens were reported to the U.S. poison control center as being “exposed” to tide pods, and of those 220, 25% were intentional. That’s nearly 55 teens who intentionally ate or “exposed” themselves to tide pods in one year. While many of the people who participated in this “challenge” most likely faked, it’s still dangerous that impressionable young people might be seeing people eating something very toxic. It’s also hazardous that teens wanting to be cool and get views and likes on social media might participate in this challenge and end up hospitalized or worse.
This next meme is one I’ve created to try to “rectify” some of the harms done by the tide pod memes. Obviously, there’s nothing anyone can really do to reverse the damages these memes did but shifting the focus of these detergent packs back to what they were supposed to be used for might be a good place to start. 
Unfortunately, I don’t think this meme would have the same virality as the originals, mostly because I’m not very good at creating good memes. But I also don’t think memes that show this “challenge” as being something damaging would have been as viral at the time because they wouldn’t have been seen as “funny” by the general populous on the internet. It’s sad that most of the stuff promoted online is toxic. It would be challenging to shift the narrative online to support more positive things and less of making jokes about hurtful things. To change this, I think most people would need to take a good hard look at the things they’re posting and ask themselves how this might affect not only the other people who might be seeing it but also how it’s affecting themselves because spreading negativity can be as damaging as just seeing it sometimes. Additionally, the people participating in these challenges should think about the kinds of things they are perpetuating on the internet and if they really want to be doing something harmful just for views and likes instead of something more positive.
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