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Strange New Social Media Trend: Licking Nintendo Switch Cartridges (macon.com)
Now that the Nintendo Switch has launched, "lots of people are just licking their video games," reports McClatchy.
According to IGN, the tech company coated the cartridges, which are roughly the size of a SIM card, in a bittering agent called denatonium benzoate, which is also used in rat poison and antifreeze to deter human consumption. The chemical is also used to deter nail-biting, per the Telegraph. Nintendo used the chemical as a safety measure to stop small children and pets from eating the cartridges. While there is no adverse health effects from consuming denatonium benzoate, it does leave a sour, bitter taste that lasts for hours, according to taste testers from BBC News, Quartz and IGN. But even as more and more people take to social media to let others know how bad the cartridges taste, more and more people seem determined to try it in what some are calling the Nintendo cartridge challenge...
"Humanity deserves no faith," opines Slashdot reader RavenLrD20k. But meanwhile on Twitter, one gamer was already complaining that their morning coffee tasted like a Nintendo Switch cartridge.
"Humanity deserves no faith," opines Slashdot reader RavenLrD20k. But meanwhile on Twitter, one gamer was already complaining that their morning coffee tasted like a Nintendo Switch cartridge.
If I want to taste something really bad, I just start cooking. Much cheaper than buying a Nintendo!
Mr. Trump, it appears you've forgotten the address for Twitter.
Paid over $300 for this new console, and all it's done is leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth.
"You know, I never thought of that before. Maybe you got something there. Let a few people go out with a smile, satisfaction guaranteed. Christ, Will, we could tell them exactly what it was and still sell some of the stuff."
"That's not funny, man," Goldberg said, handing the vial to Richardson, who carefully snugged it away with the others in the excelsior-packed box. "It's not funny because it's true."
- Norman Spinrad, "No Direction Home"
...to prevent kids from choking...
Water is used in nuclear power plants, therefore your morning coffee is radioactive. Same logic.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Strike two, Miss Paltrow, strike two.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
As if you wouldn't touch it.
Personally I now have this urge to find out what a switch cartridge tastes like.
In all fairness to the, uh, interesting people doing this, they're not completely off their rockers. Licking consoles was a thing before social media even existed.
A then-unknown Jessica Chobot (who these days hosts shows for Nerdist) basically started the whole thing by licking a PSP as a gag photo in 2005. Since then, someone, somewhere (usually Chobot, it feels like) licks a launch console.
The only novel change here is people licking the cartridge instead of the console, and that's due to the aforementioned use of a bittering agent. Maybe Nintendo got it wrong here and needs to go into licking controls instead of motion controls...
That's the problem with these newfangled computer video games . . . kids don't go outside and play any more.
If they went outside to play in the fresh air, they could catch some hallucinogenic toads to lick instead.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
When I was a kid my parents tried that anti nail-biting paint. I used to lick it off and ask for some more.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Kids will put stuff in their mouths anyhow. If it isn't a cartridge, it's something else and more dangerous. It's not like there's a dearth of items that can be inserted in the head. And a bitter taste? Just find another orifice, then!
Consider it an evolutionary opportunity. Those who choke and die won't be in the gene pool.
This nanny culture isn't helpful. Kids don't get knives anymore, so they never learn how to use it, and when getting one, they have the experience of a hundred cuts to know how to use it safely, but are strong enough to hurt themselves far more. Playgrounds don't have climbable trees. So they don't develop skills while still soft-boned and light enough to survive falls. They can't swim under water, because flotation devices prevent them from learning. They've never flown a kite, nor shot a arrow from a bow. They're not allowed wooden pencils. They have to wear safety glasses when playing conkers.
We're raising a bunch of overprotected useless dolls.
There are taste buds in vaginas and rectums?
I used to think that, and hell, maybe it's true and I was more right then. But now I just think we need to educate people more at all ages. Just force more information about everything into them until they a) get used to the idea of learning new things again and b) start to make connections with the information. I think a lot of these people are smarter than they'll ever know, because they've never learned to enjoy thinking.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
UK NHS:
We use denatonium benzoate at work to test the fit of masks designed to prevent the inhalation of biological agents. We have to don our PPE(mask) of choice and then a large hood. An examiner sprays an aerosol of denatonium benzoate into the hood to see whether the PPE fits.
I can personally claim to be immune/insensitive to the effects/taste of denatonium benzoate. Testers have sprayed the agent directly onto my tongue and eyeballs and I have not been able to tell. Apparently it's a genetic thing/bug similar to being able to smell asparagus in your pee.
I have previously wondered whether I would be able to happily consume rat poison. I will now wonder whether I can eat Nintendo Switch cartridges.
Since when is 13 equal to 3?
Last I checked, choking hazard age limits were automatic age3 rating.
American children haven't fully left the oral stage by 13. Remember the Buckyball recall? The ones who had swallowed them were all above the age you'd think kids wouldn't swallow things not meant for swallowing.
It's the country where they think "parental guidance" doesn't imply actual guidance.
The next generation of games consoles will likely have big, rounded and neoprene coated cartridges to protect American 14 year olds from themselves.
People are so stupid, I have no faith in humanity anymore.
Agreed, we really do need to thin the herd more. All this protection has lowered the average IQ and we are spiraling into a "Idiocracy" reality.
That's it!
Coming this summer:
Lord of the Flies Camp!!!
Do your little tykes have what it takes figure out the basics of survival and to comprehend the stupidity and evil lurking in there peers? Be the first to test your progeny for suitable survivor instincts and cunning. ACT NOW*, while you still have time to breed replacements...
We must have your deposit in time to ship you the 400 page waiver form for each child.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
This is what happens when you have a society that can no longer make things that are productive and all become journalists and bloggers with nothing of use to write about. Nintendo did this to try to curb an issue they saw. Someone with no real news to report decided to try to make this news. Now it's an issue for no real reason. I'm not against reporting whatever you want, just noting how pathetic society is in its need to consume 'news' that really isn't.
At least read the summary before you comment. There are no adverse health effects from consuming denatonium benzoate. It is not poison.
Not in the vagina, but there are taste buds in your colon ... and in your stomach... and pancreas ... and lungs ... and on sperm. You don't perceive taste from them, fortunately, but they do trigger other responses in your body.
they do this to screwdriver handles too so ppl don't use it has a dildo
Is this is true then Orange Is the New Black loses a significant plot point.
Anyone over the age of 12 still playing Nintendo games should be ashamed of themselves.
I watch Sailor Moon, and I'm 57.
I'm ashamed for the human race that you exist.
My cats wouldn't do that, and neither should you.
There wasn't any the last time I used one as a dildo. Sharp remains from the molding process are a much better deterrent anyway. Who wants to bleed tonight?
Another good reason to buy quality tools with wooden handles.
So at 57 you're watching a show about pre-teen schoolgirls prancing around in sexy outfits, and you're the one ashamed of humanity?
lucm, indeed.
unethical company
Ironic since Denatonium Benzoate (the component that makes it taste so nasty) is used in countless products (methanol, rat poison etc) exactly to *prevent* people from getting poisoned. Also, it's used on nails to prevent nail biting: It's safe, tastes unbearably nasty, and much better than the alternative of a kid choking to death.
Which is why the question to be asked when visiting a hardware store to purchase new equipment for the do-it-yourself jobs is "Got Wood?"
Pædophile spotted.
I like what you say, but what do we do with the people that think that "big shots alla time makin' us lern stuff, like they was better than us or somethin" is a governmental/cultural/sociological/aristicracal/illuminatical conspiracy?
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Teenagers swallowing magnets happened because they were using them as fake piercings, not because they were sticking magnets in their mouths for the taste.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
OK, their peers
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
This nanny culture isn't helpful. Kids don't get knives anymore, so they never learn how to use it, and when getting one, they have the experience of a hundred cuts to know how to use it safely, but are strong enough to hurt themselves far more. Playgrounds don't have climbable trees. So they don't develop skills while still soft-boned and light enough to survive falls. They can't swim under water, because flotation devices prevent them from learning. They've never flown a kite, nor shot a arrow from a bow. They're not allowed wooden pencils. They have to wear safety glasses when playing conkers.
Maybe where you live. Not here.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Bobby is sent to his room, but finds a way to make his own entertainment: "The clock radio smells like my Game Boy, but it tastes like my library card. I wonder if it smells different when it's on?"
At first, I was "no wooden pencils, wtf?" But I remembered I knew two kids growing up with a few millimeters of graphite embedded in the skin from being stabbed by other kids at like kindergarten age.
If I remember correctly, a few years ago, a little snowflake got a splinter from a wood pencil in her finger. The parents took her to an emergency room, and then sued the school. The result was no more wooden pencils in that district.
The conkers safety glasses, on the other hand, was a teacher who took it upon herself to implement extra safety rules.
Fake piercings? You mean, one buckyball on either side of the tongue and they pinch the tongue between them?
Hmmm, that's actually kinda clever. Except for the accidental swallowing bit.
Mass schizophrenia, no doubt. The world will be undone by masses of schizophrenics committing senseless acts till breakdown.