It seems kids and teens can’t get enough of viral internet challenges and all they have to offer…a shot at internet fame and some serious bodily harm. Last week, the tripping jump challenge made the rounds, resulting in hospital visits, suspensions, even lawsuits. This week, teens are taking on the challenge of drinking copious amounts of food coloring to turn their urine an unnatural color.
Yes, you read that right, teens are taking to TikTok to document their journey by turning their urine blue. The trend is allegedly tied to TikTok user Colty (@coltyy), who drank blue coloring for 10 days. He cut out all liquids from his diet except for water loaded with blue food coloring.
In the first TikTok video of his series, he stated, I’ll be drinking blue food coloring, and only blue food coloring. From what I’ve read online, by the fifth day the color of my pee will be blue.”
Every day, he would empty an entire dropper of blue food coloring into a glass of water. By the time his Day 10 video was posted, he explained all of the unexpected side effects of his experiment. More than just his urine turned blue, with a blue tinge being found in his poop, hair and skin.
Colty currently has 2.4 million followers and is verified on TikTok, making his potential reach to TikTok’s primarily young audience very large. He claimed his experiment was completely safe (a claim that is self-backed). TikTok has since marked the video as unsafe. Colty’s videos are now tagged with “The action in this video could result in serious injury.”
Just how safe is the up and coming trend? Artificial food coloring is known to cause health problems in both children and adults. Yellow no. 5 and Yellow no. 6, which are the second and third most popular food colorings, have been attributed to causing ADD and ADHD. Yellow no. 5 can also induce an allergic reaction in one out of every 10,000 individuals, according to the FDA.
@coltyy Day 1/5 of drinking blue food coloring! 😂💧Also it’s harmless guys don’t worry! 😊
♬ I Love It (In the Style of Kanye West & Lil Pump) [Karaoke Version] – Instrumental King