【Watch Brooklyn Nine】

Rule number one is Watch Brooklyn Ninedo not believe everything you read on the internet—especially if someone is encouraging you to eat Tide pods.

Seriously.

Over the past week, Twitter has been filled with people talking about eating Tide pods—those convenient liquid laundry detergent alternatives—and it's really strange but also incredibly hilarious. But, uh, why is this all happening exactly? Here's what we know.

SEE ALSO: 2017 seemed like a year of pampering your cat

The urge to eat Tide pods isn't anything that's new, nor can be pinpointed to just one person jokingly declaring the edibility of the pods on Twitter. It's a joke that's appeared here and there online that has for some reason peaked this holiday season. Despite its resurgence, it has been a thought lurking in people's minds since Procter & Gamble Co. first introduced the laundry detergent packaging in 2011 and changed laundry, and ultimately the internet, forever.

But before we get any further...please don't actuallyeat a Tide pod. We beg you. They are dangerous and you can develop a swallowing dysfunction or actually die from ingesting one. Just...no matter how tempting it may be...please don't.

Mashable Trend Report Decode what’s viral, what’s next, and what it all means. Sign up for Mashable’s weekly Trend Report newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

A quick search on Twitter people have been talking about eating these things since at least 2012. Yikes.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Thanks to the good historians at Know Your Meme, we can assemble a timeline of sorts of where to begin our Tide Pod lore. Our country's premiere publication The Onionwrote about eating laundry pods in 2015 from the perspective of a child, which wasn't too far fetched, considering in 2012 and 2013, the consumption of Tide pods sent at least one child a day to the hospital (the Center for Disease Control and Prevention declared them health risk in 2012).

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

"You see, every single time you look away is another chance for me to cram as many of those colorful little things as I can into my mouth," the imaginary child, Dylan DelMonico, wrote in The Onion. "And it’s during any of these moments, when you’re occupied by one of a million little daily distractions, that you’ll look down and I’ll be forearm-deep in the tub of pods with a whole slick of blue goo all over my chubby face."

CollegeHumor took it a step further in 2017 with their video, "Don't Eat the Laundry Pods." It's gruesome, it's relatable, and it's hilarious.

It's worth noting that this sketch and The Onion piece don't call out Tide pods by brand. Tide wasn't roped in until it was mentioned specifically on Reddit's /r/intrusivethoughts. That recieved an honorable mention in The Onion's 2017 piece on Sour Apple flavored detergent pods, which joked about the edible flavors in each Tide pod. Perhaps it was this that finally brought the Tide pod resurgence to the weird year of 2017.

Somehow in between then and now, thanks to a few viral tweets about the little packets of detergent, we have reached peak-Tide pod content. People can't stop joking about eating them—and some have even reached out to Gushers, the fruit snack company probably responsible for a fraction of this craze.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

All this to say, don't eat them. Please. Also, maybe we really don't deserve net neutrality.

---

Featured Video For You

---

These are some of the weirdest dating apps of 2017

---

• Shopping
• Tech
• Life
• Digital Culture
• Entertainment
• Deals
• Social Good
• Science

• Putting People First in Pennsylvania
• The Edge of the Map by Colin Dickey
• The Art of Distance No. 14 by The Paris Review
• Walt Disney’s Empty Promise by Kent Russell
• Malign Intervention
• Three Possible Worlds by Natasha Marin
• The Edge of the Map by Colin Dickey
• A Letter to the Professor Whose Name I Carry by Malcolm Tariq
• The Tagorean Impulse
• The Art of Distance No. 17 by The Paris Review

• Doom + Doom II Will It Run? Edition preorder: $666.66 on April 18
• Apple honors Earth Day with recap of environmental wins and device trade
• Apple fixes two iPhone zero
• What's new to streaming this week? (April 18, 2025)
• The latest ChatGPT trend? People are using it to turn their pets into humans.
• NYT Strands hints, answers for April 17
• NYT Connections hints and answers for April 17: Tips to solve 'Connections' #676.
• 7 Cups started a therapist directory. Critics called it a 'ghost network.'
• Inter Milan vs. Bayern Munich 2025 livestream: Watch Champions League for free
• 'Mario Kart World' Nintendo Direct: 3 takeaways

• The Reaching-Out Industry
• Staff Picks: Tricksters, Transmogrifications, and Treacherous Beauty by The Paris Review
• Periwinkle, the Color of Poison, Modernism, and Dusk by Katy Kelleher
• Staff Picks: Tricksters, Transmogrifications, and Treacherous Beauty by The Paris Review
• No Is Not Enough: Naomi Klein on Looking Beyond Trump
• Redux: Nor Staple Down to Fact by The Paris Review
• Anocha Suwichakornpong’s Memories of Unrest by Tash Aw
• This Is Not Beirut by Elias Khoury
• Boeing Starliner arrives at ISS
• Staff Picks: Professors, Paychecks, and Poetry by The Paris Review

• It’s Fun to Be in the DSA!
• The Art of Distance No. 11 by The Paris Review
• The Edge of the Map by Colin Dickey
• Masks at Twilight by The Paris Review
• Koalas are endangered now, and climate change is a big reason why
• How Neapolitan Cuisine Took Over the World by Edward White
• The Edge of the Map by Colin Dickey
• Staff Picks: Sex Work, Cigarettes, and Systemic Change by The Paris Review
• The Serve-Us Industry
• The Ancestry Project by Mariah Stovall