Is #garlicinnose the Dumbest TikTok Trend Yet?

I have no hope for humanity. Not anymore.

Photo by Michele Blackwell on Unsplash

I’m not on TikTok, and proudly so. I’m too old and apparently very, very uncool. However, I am good friends with enough teenage girls to know what’s the latest and greatest on TikTok.

Most of what they’re telling me seems outright dumb to me but very entertaining and desirable to them. I wish I could understand their world, but the 15 years between me and them is like the 50 years between me and my 80 year old uncle. It’s simply a lifetime. I don’t even try to understand them anymore.

So after #saltchallenge and #nutmegchallenge — what’s the deal with #garlicinnose?

As the hashtag already so vividly describes — it’s all about stuffing garlic up your nostrils. Watch teenagers as they ram full raw cloves of garlic up their noses, followed by a 20 to 30-minute wait. As the cloves are pulled out you witness a fascinating avalanche of thick mucus flooding out. Yum.

The alleged health benefits seem so obvious — garlic is your friend and will help you alleviate nasal congestion. So simple, and you can do it at home.

Right?

Not so right. In an interview with Insider Dr. Richard Wender (Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania) gave…