Everything you’ve never heard of could kill you. It is statistically unlikely that you will die by space crystal or poltergeist, but how do you know that you won’t? TikTok has every single detail about catastrophes looming beyond the event horizon, threatening to wipe you off the face of the Earth unless you eat some seeds or wipe yourself with an egg.
(Please do not do any of the following things).
Parasites
Do you have an itchy butt? It’s entirely possible that a 9 metre long tapeworm is burrowing its head in your intestines and shitting eggs. Add intestinal parasites to your crippling anxiety, a symptom of having parasites. Sugar cravings, acne, grinding teeth, farting, bloating, brain fog, uncontrolled hunger: parasites. Stop scrolling and check your poop. (According to people with no proven medical credentials who are following a TikTok trend.)
TikTok doesn’t really specify which of the many types of parasites it’s concerned about, but it has risen to end the epidemic with hundreds of videos hashtagged “parasitecleanse,” with an aggregate 10 million views. TikTokers don’t usually address what kind of organism this will flush out — “parasites” — but they’re eating papaya seeds anyway. One, who described the flavour as “dry erase marker,” later claimed to have pooped one parasite, and subsequently reported nausea and heartburn. An infectious disease expert from Johns Hopkins told Health.com that the papaya seed method “has not been shown to be effective outside of a clinical trial setting.”
Small studies in Nigeria and Kenya found papaya seeds effective in treating children with soil-transmitted helminths, associated with poverty in rural areas. While the CDC notes that most parasites affect people in “low-income countries,” it has separately warned that some parasites are flying under the radar in the U.S. It estimates one in five people in the U.S. are currently chronically infected with Toxoplasma gondii, the cat litter parasite which causes toxoplasmosis. It is incurable. There is nothing you can do about it.
But often, the doctor can just prescribe meds. The good news is that if you’re uncertain that something’s up, you can probably rule out Giardia, in which case you will may be alerted by explosive diarrhoea.
Moldavite
Moldavite is an extraterrestrial glass (a tektite) believed to have solidified in a fiery shower off a meteor which smashed into now-Germany. 15 million years later, its polished fragments have transmitted their paranormal energy via TikTok and sit upon gem store shelves, waiting to unleash cataclysmic space curses on the innocent.
thread of people having an extremely normal one about a rock they bought online https://t.co/pSx83Au9dp
— c a i t (@kittynouveau) April 28, 2021
We arrived at this discovery after TikTok seized on moldavite because, in the words of the online shop Crystal Vaults, “It facilitates strong, clear, and direct connection between one’s consciousness and the Universal Source.”
Shortly after, some TikTokers became convinced that moldavite cost them their job, burned their house down, caused a divorce and a car wreck, and killed one or more people. Other moldavite owners became convinced that moldavite improved everything. We simply don’t know what moldavite does or does not do, but news reports elsewhere indicate that The Universe typically does not care to mitigate undeserved human suffering.
BRUH. GET RID OF THIS SHIT pic.twitter.com/VDYyJ2OOe4
— c a i t (@kittynouveau) April 28, 2021
Mirrors
Have you ever had a niggling feeling that something isn’t quite right and then realised: holy shit, I’m surrounded by mirrors? You are living in a Hellraiser prison of spiritual gateways.
Due to this information (again, that mirrors are portals to the spiritual realm), various experts strongly advise against hanging them in the bedroom to prevent nighttime hauntings. At least one person has removed the mirror and has evidently migrated to another room.
Food
Once we’ve demolished Lucifer’s portals and cast them into the dumpster, we may be tempted to head over to the grocery store — a poison pit of cyanide .
Unless you’re prepared to escape this mortal coil, we must first check TikTok for foods that can kill us:
- Green potatoes [the New York Times: whole potato to sicken a 45 kg adult]
- Rhubarb [the Canadian Institute of Food Safety: 5 kg of rhubarb leaves]
- Cherry pits [an anecdotal BBC report: possibly three]
- Apple seeds [the Encyclopaedia Brittanica: from 150 to several thousand, crushed]
- Bitter almond [NPR: possibly 50 wild bitter almonds, not snack almonds]
- Lima beans [Oregon State University and National Geographic: raw (especially wild), yes, but commercially-grown and cooked, no. Cause flatulence.]
- Kidney beans [Food and Drug Administration: consuming four to five raw kidney beans can cause “profuse vomiting,” though a standard lethal dose remains unclear]
- Puffer fish [National Geographic: yes, unless prepared by a skilled, licensed chef, this can kill up to 30 adults]
- 48 teaspoons of salt [the journal Nutrients: from 19 reported cases, actually, 12 teaspoons can kill an adult.]
- 6 litres of water [In 2006, Jennifer Strange died from drinking six litres of water for a radio contest]
The government kno0ows.
Poop
Segueing from the previous slide, Humourist TikTok seeks to maintain the delicate balance of bodily fluids, namely by flushing their ever-mounting pileup of stool. Hence, many have decided to free their innards of toxic compost and enjoy the auburn slurry flowing through an iridescent tube. (Mostly, this is tied to a #weightlossjourney or #healthhack.)
Eyyy who wants to watch some colonics? Flat tummy, much poop.
Dogs
Some seem to enjoy fantasizing about how quickly certain dog breeds could kill you, imagining a world where a precariously fine line spares all humans from becoming dog meat. Sounds like that would be a bad place.
Other witches
TikTok baby witches strafed hexes last year at their sworn nemeses Republicans and the moon. Now their curses have borne fruit: Joe Biden is president, and Elon Musk is sending noxious Doge energy to our celestial sister.
The takeaway from 2020 is that hexes work; 689 million people have been trained to hex; there is a 100% chance that everyone and everything in our hexable orbit has been hexed.
You will not escape inevitable misery, but you can perform a #eggcleanse for more information. Remove one (non-lethal) egg from the fridge, rub it all over your body, and crack it over a glass of water. If transparent spikes rise up from the egg to form points (presumably the chalazae, fibrous cords which anchor the yolk in the centre of the whites), you will know that you have been cursed.
Other people
OK woo ha ha we’re on the kitchen floor surrounded by eggshells, glass shards, and chocolate-laced dog treats. Doing great! Equipped to face the world! So long as we steer clear of the most dangerous animal: Libras.
Also: Leos, Aries, Scorpios, Aquarians, Capricorns, Cancers, Virgos, Tauruses, Geminis, Sagittarius, and Pisces.
It was you. And me. Thanks for coming on this journey, constipated maniacs. I’ve never felt so alive.
As always, consult a medical professional.