In recent weeks, memes declaring Tide Pods as an appetizing food have dominated the internet. The idea of eating Tide Pods has shipped from the meme world into the real one — spawning challenges in which people are actually ingesting Tide Pods and consequently being hospitalized.

The allure of eating Tide Pods is expressed by many, like CAS junior Mathania Toussaint.

“It started off when people were like, ‘Tide Pods look like candy,’” Toussaint said. “There’s things where they photoshop Tide Pods into other fruit.”

Tisch freshman Jayce Lewis said the origins of the Tide Pod challenge were rather innocent.

“It was a generalized meme of ‘forbidden fruit,’ and it was things like Tide Pods, the dice from Dungeons and Dragons … and then people started photoshopping it into pictures of Adam and Eve as a joke,” Lewis said. “They just latched onto Tide Pods for some reason … they started making it into an eating Tide Pods meme instead of a forbidden fruit meme.”

Toussaint and Lewis, like many others, were taken by surprise when people took the meme seriously and started eating Tide Pods.

CAS freshman Carolina Rios believes social media led people to take the meme to a whole new level. “There’s the whole internet culture, especially YouTube internet culture, of dares and then proving your coolness points, by eating poisonous Tide Pods,” Rios said.

“I saw somebody pour liquid detergent on the pod and put it in their mouth and then drink the liquid detergent afterwards like as water,” CAS junior Deirdre Harkins said.

In a press release, The American Association of Poison Control Centers said that there had been 86 cases of teenagers purposely ingesting single-load laundry packets since the beginning of 2018.

“Since our first alert to this life-threatening activity, the trend of intentionally ingesting single-load laundry packets has increased in its popularity despite repeated warnings,” CEO and Executive Director of AAPCC Stephen Kaminski said.

According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, consuming liquid laundry detergent packets may result in loss of consciousness, excessive vomiting, drowsiness, throat swelling and difficulty breathing.

Tide and its parent company, Proctor and Gamble, are publicly speaking out against the Tide Pod challenge. On its Twitter account, Tide posted a video with Rob Gronkowski, of the New England Patriots, discouraging people from participating in the Tide Pod challenge. Proctor and Gamble reported that it was collaborating with social media platforms to remove videos glorifying the Tide Pod challenge in a press release.

What should Tide PODs be used for? DOING LAUNDRY. Nothing else.

Eating a Tide POD is a BAD IDEA, and we asked our friend @robgronkowski to help explain. pic.twitter.com/0JnFdhnsWZ

— Tide (@tide) January 12, 2018

The Tide Pod memes that sparked this controversy show no sign of stopping, as they are still popular on social media platforms. However, Tisch freshman Michael Oluokun believes that the trend will eventually dissipate.

“It’s the latest fad, like the cinnamon challenge or drinking bleach,” Oluokun said. “People just want to do it for the attention.”