Active Shooter Calls to NyQuil Chicken: Why Viral Trends Are Hard to Trace

As a number of different trends have continued to go viral on the hugely popular video platform TikTok, a social media expert said that trying to trace the origins of such trends may be difficult.

Earlier this week, law enforcement officials in South Carolina connected a string of fake active shooter calls at schools to a challenge on TikTok. And a recent trend stirred buzz on TikTok in which users cooked chicken with NyQuil, prompting a warning from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Dr. Jeffrey Blevins, a journalism professor at the University of Cincinnati, explained to Newsweek that finding how these trends began could be a challenge, adding that the NyQuil chicken trend was something that went viral "a couple of years ago."

TikTok
In this photo illustration, the download page for the TikTok app is displayed on an Apple iPhone on August 7, 2020 in Washington, DC. On October 5, 2022, law enforcement officials in South Carolina linked... Drew Angerer/Getty Images

"Someone made a single post about it and in retrospect, it started to get a lot of attention. So it's possible that this might have started a while ago. And if you're looking for something that's current on TikTok, it may not be there and then certain people can delete the post," said Blevins, whose research expertise is in social media.

The comments by Blevins come shortly after South Carolina's Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott linked a number of fake active shooter calls at schools in the state to a TikTok trend. However, local media reports and Newsweek's own analysis were unable to find the challenge on TikTok.

The FBI also announced it was investigating a series of fake active shooter calls in South Carolina, although it did not mention a TikTok challenge associated with the calls.

"The FBI is aware of the numerous swatting incidents wherein a report of an active shooter at a school is made...while we have no information to indicate a specific and credible threat, we will continue to work with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to gather, share, and act upon threat information as it comes to our attention," the agency said in a statement, per Justin Dougherty of WHNS.

Blevins said that there's no means to corroborate that a trend like the fake active shooter calls originated on TikTok.

"Someone can just say, 'Oh well, it's a TikTok trend,'" he said. "Well, how do we know that? There really is no way to verify, so you really have to focus on the illegal behavior itself more so than the trend."

On the NyQuil chicken trend again, Blevins said "just because these challenges are out there, it's not like it necessarily exercises full mind control over people. You might be encouraging them to do something stupid, dangerous, illegal or harmful—but everyone who saw that, not everyone did that activity."

Blevins also said that TikTok could "absolutely" police trends and challenges. But he noted that since TikTok is not a U.S.-based company, it is difficult for the government to step in and force it to do so.

"We're relying on the goodwill, if you will, of these companies, but they all dictate what their community standards are and if they will enforce them," he said.

In response to the NyQuil chicken trend, a spokesperson for TikTok previously told Newsweek that the app has "seen a very small amount of content related to this 'trend' and are actively removing content that violates our guidelines and blocking related hashtags to further discourage participation."

"The safety and well-being of our users is TikTok's top priority. As we make clear in our Community Guidelines, we do not allow content that encourages, promotes, or glorifies dangerous challenges that might lead to injury," the spokesperson added.

Newsweek reached out to TikTok for comment on the reports of a hoax active shooter challenge but did not receive a response in time for publication.

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