I saw a dumb thing on the internet so\u2026 now you have to see a dumb thing on the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today\u2019s Moment of Science\u2026 Bonesmashing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remember the Tide Pod challenge like fourteen centuries and a pandemic ago? It\u2019s true that plenty of poisonings have occurred from ingesting the candy-colored detergent packs, but teenagers goofing around on the internet are largely blameless. Tide Pods first became available in 2012, more than four years before TikTok existed. Poison control centers in the US received over 7,000 reports of poisoning from the consumption of Tide Pods the first year they were on the market. Most of these cases involved very young children or adults with dementia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The phrase \u2018Tide Pod Challenge\u2019 spiked in Google searches in January of 2018 and was pretty much gone by spring. Though exact numbers are difficult to confirm, out of forty million teenagers in the US, there were only around 100 poisonings during the Satanic Panic I mean the era of the Tide Pod Challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everyone had to write their adorable little fucking think pieces about it though. 2018 was a simpler time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I told you that story to tell you this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another phrase showed up online for the first time a few months after the Tide Pod debacle calmed down. It\u2019s resurfacing on TikTok now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In some bleaker forums on the internet, incels have convinced themselves that no woman will ever want them. Not because of their personalities, their interests, their bizarre disdain for cats, no. It\u2019s their bone structure, or so they\u2019ve decided. These guys typically aren\u2019t the Quasimodo\u2019s they imagine themselves to be. But incel forums aren\u2019t feel-good support groups. Everyone reinforces the collective self-doubts, dragging their fellow members down with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The advice that\u2019s tossed around in these forums isn\u2019t to learn to play an instrument or maybe join a book club or if things get really desperate, find an improv troupe. It\u2019s that they need to \u201clooksmaxx,\u201d which I believe is 1984 newspeak for \u201cget better looking.\u201d They\u2019re not talking about getting a haircut and becoming acquainted with soap. They\u2019re talking about plastic surgery for those hopelessly unfuckable bones of theirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When plastic surgery isn\u2019t an option, there\u2019s always bonesmashing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Desperate people might be trading on established medical fact for medical fuckery here. Limb lengthening surgery involves deliberately breaking bones and pulling them apart in a slow, controlled manner. This allows them to grow, at best, a hard earned millimeter longer per day. The procedure is done to increase height or address limb length discrepancies. It\u2019s a painful process that takes several months, and can add up to six inches of height.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2026sometimes six inches are worth it. I’ll see myself out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The concept behind bonesmashing is pretty similar. Weak jaw, recessed chin, or a pretty darned normal face but a shit personality and you\u2019re blaming your dating woes on your cheekbones? The idea is to hammer away at your bones to make \u201cmicrobreaks,\u201d causing them to heal into the aesthetic of one\u2019s choosing. A literal hammer doesn\u2019t make an appearance in most TikToks on the subject. Sometimes it\u2019s a back massager, sometimes it\u2019s a fist just lightly drumming away along the jawline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A concept called Wolff\u2019s Law is sometimes cited as \u201cevidence\u201d that this works. But, tldr, Wolff\u2019s Law is a good explanation for why, as a right handed person, my right hand is a bit bigger than my left. It\u2019s not a suggestion from the bowels of the internet to jackhammer my cheeks in hopes of developing a resemblance to Angelina Jolie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But is this actually a dangerous TikTok craze? Eh, I\u2019m not all that convinced the terminology even started on incel forums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first place I can find \u2018bonesmashing\u2019 in this context anywhere on Al Gore\u2019s internet? A 2018 Vice article titled Learn to Decode the Secret Language of the Incel Subculture. Four days later, Vice\u2019s term and definition appeared on a popular incel forum. It spread to other forums in the following months. Fortunately, most posters were skeptical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust bash your skull till it grows theory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI smashed my boner now I have an 11 inch dick.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHave one of your buddies smash a brick into your spine, guaranteed 2 inches of growth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I\u2019m not saying that Vice just plucked the term out of thin air. Nope, uh-uh, not at all. I\u2019m just saying I\u2019m goddamn gifted at finding shit, that article is the oldest place it still exists at this point, and Vice sucks for too many reasons to list. In a new article and video from Vice this last month, they suggested that \u201cbonesmashing is thought to have originated in an incel forum.\u201d Which is something they probably should have fact checked in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is there reason to be concerned for the safety of these incels, drawn in by the looksmaxing power of smashing their faces with massagers and their own hands? Only about as concerned as we should have been that Tide Pods signaled the downfall of America, which is to say not at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has been your Moment of Science, going to find my back massager.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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