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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday January 31 2018, @03:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the darwin-award-candidates dept.

Teenagers Are Still Eating Tide Pods, But Don't Expect A Product Redesign

If you've never seen it, a Tide Pod looks like a little rounded packet, white with two separate swirls of blue and orange liquid. To be clear, a Tide Pod is laundry detergent heavily concentrated into a single packet, meant to dissolve in water and clean a single load of laundry. But these days, it's a dare — an Internet meme, in which teenagers try to eat Tide Pods as a "challenge." The trend picked up in December, but the pace of poisonings is still getting worse. So far in January alone, poison control centers have received 134 reports of "intentional exposures" to laundry packets, Tide or others. That's compared with 53 cases the American Association of Poison Control Centers reported for all of 2017, mostly involving teenagers.

[...] Designs like this are never willy-nilly, says Chris Livaudais, executive director of the Industrial Designers Society of America. The process starts by studying the habits of a potential user to find ways to make their life better in some way. In this case, the condensed formula does away with a heavy jug and the need for measurement.

[...] The colors are already associated with liquid detergent, Livaudais says. And the swirls "might imply how active the ingredients are and how well it would do the washing job."

Jones says the swirls were indeed a design choice — indicating that the pod brings together three ingredients (cleaning, stain-fighting and brightening, he says). The pod is transparent because customers have told Tide they like to know what they're putting into the wash with their clothes.

Livaudais says industrial designers spend a lot of time mulling best and worst case scenarios for the use of products. But if someone knowingly chooses to misuse them? "That's completely out of our hands," he says.

National Poison Help hotline: 1-800-222-1222.


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by HiThere on Wednesday January 31 2018, @06:50PM (5 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 31 2018, @06:50PM (#631088) Journal

    Red wings? I don't understand. You mean you ate boots? Certainly wearing them has noting to do with their taste.

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    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:19PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:19PM (#631106)

    You dont want to know, but if you must, google earning them.

    • (Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:53PM

      by Aiwendil (531) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:53PM (#631128) Journal

      1) I know people with that as a kink
      2) EEW TMI
      3) This will make NHL news bearable for the next couple of months, thanks for the expression

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:08PM (2 children)

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:08PM (#631138) Homepage Journal

    I'll tell you, it's when a lady is bleeding from her whatever, and she wants you to lick THAT. The blood. Don't do it. Because there are so many diseases. Vaginas, these days, are potential landmines. There’s some real danger there. You have to have a roving doctor, his office has to be in your briefcase. He has to be your best friend. He has to go with you at all times. He has to do onsite tests. Dating is like being in Vietnam. You’re the equivalent of a soldier going over to Vietnam, it's just as bloody. And just as dangerous!

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:31PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:31PM (#631160) Journal

      The best way to get young boys to learn to stay away from vaginas is to calmly sit down with them and explain that women's vaginas are lined with razor sharp teeth that can bite off a child's hand.

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      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 4, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:46PM

        by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:46PM (#631168) Homepage Journal

        I think you're joking, maybe you're joking. Because if you just put your hand in there it's OK. For me it's always been OK. But when you start sticking your whatever in vaginas, then it gets VERY EXPENSIVE. Some guys spend too much. I never spend more than I have to. Because I have terrific lawyers. I always, always get the prenup. And it's been worth every penny!