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As with all social media crazes, it has gone from bad to worse with some teens getting their lips stuck from using superglue instead of eyelash glue!
This craze comes after a long list of other potentially dangerous social media crazes such as the tide pod challenge and cinnamon challenge.
Are teens really doing this craze?
The answer is yes, but for different reasons.
What’s different about this craze is that it began on TikTok which is a new social media platform that’s becoming very, very popular.
Each social media platform has a different emphasis, for example Instagram is all about beautiful images. TikTok is a social media space where young people collaborate in a creative way.
This means that once the first ‘gluing lips’ video hit their screens, young people quickly began making their own copycat version of the video and posting it on TikTok. In line with TikTok, their videos were creative joke videos poking fun at cosmetic surgery.
Not everyone however is in on the joke and other teens have taken this craze literally. Convinced it is a cheap beauty hack that works. That’s where problems begin with teens supergluing their lips!
Tips for parents
Teens trying a new cheap beauty hack is nothing new. We’ve all done it when we were their age. What’s different here though is teens’ understanding of the intent of someone posting a video of this kind online.
We all interact with online content is very individualised ways. We bring different experiences and knowledge of the online space and what it is. Talk to your teens about this.
· Help them to understand the varied reasons people post things online.
· Guide them to being more critical of what they see and read online. and that not everything should be taken at face value and is what it seems.
· This should be an ongoing talk you have with your child from an early age. Don’t wait until they are supergluing their lips to have this conversation.
