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The Barbie Drug Your Dermatologist Has Never Heard Of

2 Jul 2026

Spray it up your nose, or inject it under the skin, and within days your skin turns a deep, even, suspiciously permanent bronze. No sun required. TikTok calls it the “vacation peptide.” The...

Red Cabbage Does Not Know the Sex of Your Baby

15 May 2026

Old wives’ tales were the original social media trends. One person would try something new to fix a problem, convinced themselves that it worked, and pass the tip along to their friends and...

Can McDonald’s Cure Your Migraine? Debunking the Viral McMigraine Trend

15 Aug 2025

For those who consider themselves to be a part of the “Migraine girlies” community, you may be familiar with the recent McMigraine trend on TikTok’s #migraine page....

The Paper-Thin Evidence for Mouth Taping

26 Jun 2025

TikTokers can’t shut up about this one simple trick. All you need to do is seal your mouth with tape before going to bed, and you will apparently collect a slew of benefits. It will give you more...

Yes, Helen Keller Was Deafblind

26 Jul 2024

It started with the Helen Keller jokes. You could call it an unfortunate revival. Over forty years ago and following the broadcast of The Miracle Worker, jokes about Helen Keller became mainstream.

The One “Chip Challenge” Deserves a Heated Discussion

13 Sep 2023

The fact that the sauce was packaged in a box shaped like a coffin should have been a clue. On a trip to New Orleans I walked into one of the many shops that sell an array of hot sauces and are set...

Your Tongue Knows How the World Feels

11 Aug 2023

“Your tongue knows what everything feels like.” This phrase has 27.6M hits on TikTok, leaving people with their tongues hanging out and brows furrowed. Of course, we know the texture of our morning...

Another TikTok Trend Not Based on Science: Vabbing

10 May 2023

Vabbing, as the name perhaps suggests, involves the dabbing of vaginal secretions onto so-called pulse points of the body—wrists, neck, inside the elbows—just as you would a fragrance.

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