# Tide Pod challenge

> Tide Pod jokes became a safety scare; Meltwater later reported 2 million hashtag mentions.

- Owner: null
- Kind: Meme & format
- Sector: Culture (no sector)
- Seed date: 2013-12-05
- Observed peak date: Week of Jan 26, 2018
- Date basis: Observed peak within the documented measurement window; not an all-time maximum. Dates use the stated precision; chart positions are date anchors.
- Spread Score: 53 (Notable), v1.3
- Mechanics: Challenge, Platform jump, Press loop, Controversy

## Summary

Jokes spread through forums, satire and tweets. Challenge videos prompted safety warnings and removals. Five Wikipedia titles had their combined seven-day high in the week ending January 26 within the January-February window.

## Timeline

- 2013-12-05 — Silvorange (Open web) — Silvorange opened a forum thread about eating Tide pods and joked about having some in the laundry room.
- 2015-12-08 — The Onion (Press) — The Onion published a toddler's fictional vow to eat multicolored detergent pods.
- 2017-03-31 — CollegeHumor (YouTube) — CollegeHumor released a sketch about a man tempted to eat laundry pods after being warned against it.

The full timeline, metrics and sources are on the case page, or via the Pro API (https://howitspread.com/developers).

Canonical URL: https://howitspread.com/cases/tide-pod-challenge

Cite as: How It Spread (2026). “Tide Pod challenge.” Case HIS-01480. Spread Score v1.3: 53/100. Updated 2026-10-23. https://howitspread.com/id/HIS-01480