In a year that has already seen folk swallowing washing machine tablets, burning their own arms on kitchen hobs and confusing conks for cocks and sticking johnnies up their noses, there is a new champion of internet dumb.
You see, with the tide pods and the hobs and the condoms, there was an element of uncertainty: while one might be able to predict vaguely what would happen, we didn't exactly know just how long it would take to burn an arm on a cooker until someone did it. The current trend for sticking tin foil in a microwave, however, boasts no such jeopardy.
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You see, we all know exactly what is going to happen when you do that. Or at least, we assumed that we all knew.
A Japanese Twitter account published a photo of an incredibly shiny ball of tin foil by battering it with a rubber hammer until it was totally hard and then shining it with sandpaper.
Somehow, this painstaking and ultimately pointless task was - wrongly - translated into English as 'put it in a microwave for one minute', which several people decided to do, with predictable results.
Of course, on the internet, there is always someone dumb enough to do anything, and a whole heap of microwaves have reportedly paid the forfeit for that.
As with everything in life, to get the thing you want, whether they be six pack abs, a law degree, the deposit for a house in 21st century Britain or, yes, an incredibly shiny piece of tin foil, the secret lies in tedious and futile repetitive toil rather a minute long quick fix.
Topics: Viral, Twitter, Community