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Barely a day goes by on social media without something strange – to downright bizarre – happening.
The latest craze involves sliced cheese. And while it has many in stitches, others are outraged by it.
The #CheeseChallenge involves parents throwing a slice of cheese at their babies’ faces.
It all started last week on Twitter when someone who goes by the handle @unclehxlmes shared a video of someone throwing cheese in a baby’s face. He captioned the video, “I’ve just cheesed my baby brother”.
The video went viral within hours and more than 8 million people have watched it so far.
Because of the reaction it received, @unclehxlmes felt compelled to come clean that he hadn’t made the video – he’d seen it on Facebook and shared it on Twitter. He’s since removed it.
But it was too late.
The hashtag #CheeseChallenge had been created and people around the world had started sharing videos of throwing cheese at their children’s faces.
But some babies took it better than others. In some videos the babies burst out laughing, but in others they just look confused or start crying.
One mom went as far as throwing an entire cheeseburger at her teenage son.
Even pet owners joined in the hype, throwing sliced cheese at their cats or dogs.
But while millions of people think the #CheeseChallenge is hilarious, there’s been a backlash from those who feel it’s humiliating and dehumanising.
Some have written “it’s wrong on so many levels” while others have labelled it child abuse.
One person filmed a video of simply handing her child a slice of cheese, and posted it with the #CheeseChallenge hashtag. She’s since received many positive reactions from people saying it’s a much better version of the craze.
