A scheming TikToker successfully convinced many of his 153,000 followers to go along with a phony, outlandish trend online called the “Porcelain Challenge” meant “to get the boomers to freak out.”
Sebastian Durfee — known as @childprogeny on the app — concocted “the porcelain challenge,” a viral (and untrue) rumor that kids were smashing up their family’s heirloom plates into a powder for snorting.
“We say like, ‘Oh, Gen Z is like grinding up their parents’ antique china into a fine powder and snorting it like cocaine,’ ” he says in the original, Oct. 1 clip which racked up more than half a million views.
“We don’t actually have to do it, but if we reference it enough, do you think we could get like a Buzzfeed article about it? It can be funny.”
As word caught on over the weekend, Durfee upped the ante by making fake reports on the phantom trend from Fox News and CNN as well.
Other supporters, like @chronic.claire have created their own online propaganda where they jokingly allege that TikTok is removing clips of kids doing the challenge because “people are getting seriously hurt.”
Pretend awareness videos like that are an “actually brilliant” tactic to bait boomer suckers, the creator said. Durfee has also encouraged believers in his cause to post in their local town Facebook groups regarding “the dangers of the porcelain challenge.”
Others have been commenting on the clips, bearing false witness to the challenge’s dastardly effects.
Despite Durfee’s success in sounding the alarm and garnering media attention for the nonexistent stupidity, he has confessed a fatal flaw in the plan.
“I just realized it totally should have been the silica-gel packet challenge. I don’t know what I was thinking, big missed opportunity,” Durfee said in a follow-up TikTok. “I’ll try again in a few months once everyone’s forgotten about this one,” he captioned the video.
This comes just days after the FDA warned against the NyQuil Chicken Challenge, in which people really were pouring the medicine on pan-seared poultry.
There are no credible reports that anyone has actually taken the porcelain challenge seriously by actually attempting to snort a table setting.