Whip-its and a chroming challenge: descriptive analyses of inhalant-related content on TikTok
Embargo Date
2026-10-27
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
BACKGROUND: There are significant concerns about the potential social contagion effect of readily accessible content depicting high-risk behaviors such as substance use. There is already a substantial body of research evidence portraying widespread social media content featuring cannabis and alcohol use, and connecting the use of these substances to online content exposure. However, despite the significant medical risks resulting from chronic inhalant use, and the occurrence of an inhalant-related social media viral challenge in 2023, there are no studies examining how inhalant use is portrayed on social media video-based platforms. This study mines publicly available TikTok data to 1) quantify and characterize these inhalant-related video content, and 2) explore whether the onset of a deadly inhalant-related social media challenge might alter portrayals of inhalant use in posted video content.
METHOD: Inhalant-related videos from 2020 to Fall 2023 were collected through TikTok using its application programming interface (API). Utilizing a curated list of hashtags related to inhalant use, videos and their corresponding metadata (i.e., views, likes, additional hashtags) were aggregated into a spreadsheet. The list of videos was processed to remove duplicates and unrelated content. Following processing, videos were categorized and then coded based on demographic data, sentiments, and themes (e.g., inhalant use portrayed positively vs. negatively). Chi-square analyses examined differences in inhalant-related video content before and after 2023.
RESULTS: After processing the initial video list, the set of 9,961 videos was reduced to 300. Concerning demographics, 44.0% of the users were between the ages of 25 and 50, 51.9% were female (out of the total male and female), and 67.0% were white. Most of the videos (40.7%) were intended to humor or entertain the audience, and 38.0% of the videos portrayed inhalants positively. After the inhalant-related “Chroming challenge” went viral in 2023, there was a significant increase in the proportion of videos portraying inhalants more negatively (p < .05).
CONCLUSIONS: The existence of any videos portraying inhalant use in a positive or humorous manner poses a risk for social contagion, given that these videos are readily accessible to all users. However, our findings suggest that the viral Chroming challenge may have caused TikTok users to experience a greater number of negatively depicted videos as a result of an increase in negatively to positively depicted video ratio. This potentially could have a positive health impact on the stance of inhalant use.
Description
2024