Junk Explained: Are TikTok Teens Really Supergluing Their Lips To Make Them Look Bigger?
Welcome to the latest, baffling internet trend.
The internet is like the ocean, in the sense that it’s full of weird fangly creatures from the fathomless depths of your nightmares, and that it often comes in waves. And the latest wave of weird, potentially worrisome teen trends is all about superglue and lips.
It’s a kind of spiritual successor of the much maligned Tide Pods controversy, in the sense that a lot of people are reporting on the weird youths and their strange obsession with doing something vaguely dangerous for viral fame. Or remember when Netflix had to tell people to stop doing the ‘Bird Box Challenge’?
Can’t believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE. We don’t know how this started, and we appreciate the love, but Boy and Girl have just one wish for 2019 and it is that you not end up in the hospital due to memes.
— Netflix US (@netflix) January 2, 2019
However, where the superglue trend truly differs from Tide Pods is that people are DEFINITELY and ACTUALLY supergluing their lips for comedic effect online. It’s also much less harmful than ingesting washing liquid, so I hope we can forestall a moral panic early.
The trend began its beautiful life on TikTok, home of teens doing weird shit together. We simply gotta stan.
A lot of outlets are reporting that TikTok user @chloehammock4 began the trend, which isn’t precisely true. She writes in the description of her video that she saw “some other girl do this” but “lost her video tho”. But her video is definitely the one that blew up and got the trend viral, currently sitting on over 400,000 likes.
In the video, which is only 15 seconds long, she applies a thin strip of glue above her top lip, and then presses her lip up against it, recreating the look of someone with lip fillers. She then applies some Kylie Jenner lipstick. That’s the description. Watch it:
As I’ve written before, TikTok is a collaborative medium, designed for people to join in easily on trends, so other people quickly began dueting, recreating, and riffing on the trend. It is pretty easy, too.
However, it’s also worth pointing out that this is obviously making fun of the trend of insane lip fillers, and is not a budget attempt at seriously recreating that look. I mean, it feels obvious, but already people have gotten their wires crossed. This is a joke! They’re doing it because they look funny!
i did the lip glue thing from tiktok and jokingly said to my friend that i got lip injections and shes so unsupportive omg..
— sugar honey iced tea (@missdaytonah) September 9, 2019
So there's a trend on tiktok where you put lash glue on top of your lip and glue it down so it looks fuller and I can't believe it actually works LMAO pic.twitter.com/X0HbwbvdDG
— Androchan💖 (@androuchan) September 8, 2019
It’s also worth pointing out that using lash glue isn’t TECHNICALLY superglue — it’s meant to be used on skin, so it’s not actually very harmful.
However, the dangerous thing is that people are actually starting to use the wrong kind of glue, and that’s a big yikes.That shit is gonna hurt. Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of men who are using real superglue lol.