What Is The TikTok Kool-Aid Man Challenge And Why Is It A Police Red Flag?
Not all TikTok challenges are fun: Take the one chip challenge that sees creators eat what is supposedly the "world's hottest chip" or the equally spicy Carolina reaper challenge. As unpleasant as they may be, most challenges should not get you in trouble with the police. This is may not be the case with the Kool-Aid challenge if some news reports are to be believed.
Kool-Aid is a nostalgic drink that comes in both powder and liquid form (like the famed Kool-Aid Jammers) and brings many back to their childhood. It might resurface memories of playing outside or sticking a purple tongue out at people all day. It might even remind some of Kool-Aid's rambunctious jug-shaped mascot that made his debut in 1975 in a commercial set in a bowling alley. The Kool-Aid Man has been around and busting through walls for quite a few generations. In fact, his stiff oversized build might not successfully make it through any door frame without bringing the place down, but people love him for it. Unfortunately, some people worry that his behavior is beginning to influence kids in a negative way.
The Kool-Aid Man challenge may be inspiring property damage
It's 10 p.m., do you know where your children are? We can hope they're not out doing the Kool-Aid Man challenge and ruining people's fences. The Kool-Aid Man challenge on TikTok consists of mostly contractors bursting through walls before giving a hearty "OH YEAH!!" into the camera, and it has been around for a couple years. While people worried at first that this was something kids were doing on the social media platform, Newsweek released an article in 2021 reporting that the Kool-Aid Man challenge did not encourage kids or teens to burst through people's fences (or at least there was no evidence to support as much as there weren't any videos of kids doing this on TikTok) and that this particular kind of vandalism is an unrelated event known as "fencing".
However, this Kool-Aid Man-style vandalism seems to have made a comeback in 2023. NBC News report shows that a few teens were recently caught on camera rushing through a homeowner's fences as a prank. Whether the Kool-Aid Man challenge has anything to do with this or not, hopefully the media and teens will cease to tarnish the Kool-Aid Man's good name (and people's fences).