If you’ve been anywhere near social media, local news, or late-night talk shows in the last few days, you’ve probably heard something about a supposedly viral TikTok “challenge” that’s exactly what it sounds like: cooking chicken in a marinade of cold medicine.
News stories about this supposed trend are often accompanied by nausea-inducing images of raw chicken in dark green syrup. It’s both disgusting and, as the FDA recently reminded the public, just as toxic as it looks. But it turns out Nyquil Chicken was neither new, nor particularly viral, and the FDA’s bizarrely-timed warning may have backfired, making the meme more popular than ever.
First, some history. Ryan Borderick was the reporter. Subscribe to his newsletter Garbage DayNyquil Chicken began as a joke on 4Chan 2017 The meme briefly In January, it gained some traction on TikTok but then faded away again.
Then, last week, the FDA — inexplicably — issued a Warning about the dangers of Nyquil chicken cooking. In a notice titled “A Recipe for Danger: Social Media Challenges Involving Medicines,” the FDA refers to it as a “recent” trend. But they cite no recent examples, and it’s unclear why they opted to push out a warning more than eight months after the meme had first appeared on TikTok.
Screenshot / TikTok
Now, in what we can only hope will be a valuable lesson on unintended consequences, we know that it was likely the FDA’s warning about Nyquil chicken that pushed this “challenge” to new levels of virality, at least on TikTok. TikTok now confirms that Nyquil chicken was present on September 14th. This occurred the day before FDA’s notice. Only five searches for “Nyquil chicken” in the app. But by September 21st, that number skyrocketed “by more than 1,400 times,” BuzzFeed NewsThis is the first time that TikTok searched data was reported by.
TikTok was launched recently to limit the spread of both dangerous “challenges” and “alarmist warnings” about hoaxes, is now blocking searches for “Nyquil Chicken.” Searches now direct users to resources encouraging users to “stop and take a moment to think” before pursuing a potentially dangerous “challenge.”
Both BuzzFeed Gizmodo , there’s little evidence that people are actually cooking chicken in Nyquil, much less actually ingesting it. That’s a good thing because, as the FDA makes very clear, doing so is not only extremely gross, but highly toxic. But that’s not the end of it. of why we should all be more skeptical of panic-inducing viral “challenges.”
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