What Happened on December 22 on TikTok? Details

Ad Blocker Detected

Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors. Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.

On December 22, 2022, TikTok users went rogue after they realized they could post sexually explicit content on the platform using a certain feature.

Kelly Corbett - Author
@noahglenncarter explains dec 22 incident
Source: TikTok / @noahglenncarter

What were you doing on December 22, 2022? While many folks were probably gearing up for the holidays and spending time with their families, other folks were having a NSFW field day on TikTok. This date marks a significant event in the app’s history where things went off the rails.

Below, we explain what went down on December 22, 2022, in the TikTok world and why it’s such a big deal.

Article continues below advertisement

tiktok app open on an iphone
Source: Getty Images

What does December 22 mean? On that date in 2022, a rare incident occured.

If you go on TikTok often, you may have heard some folks reference the December 22 incident but weren’t sure what they were talking about. Creator Noah Glenn Carter (@noahglenncarter) explains in a video why this date is known “as the most infamous day in TikTok history.”

Article continues below advertisement

“On that day, many TikTok users found out they could post corn if they posted the corn using TikTok’s slideshow effect,” he said. (Note: Corn is code for sexually explicit content).

Article continues below advertisement

“The corn went mega, mega, viral,” he continued. “For some reason, TikTok’s algorithm started recommending it to everyone on the app, and videos that were just straight corn were getting millions upon millions of views and many of them weren’t even getting taken down.”

According to Know Your Meme, this graphic content continued to circulate on the platform for a few days. By December 25, 22, it seemingly had been all cleaned up.

Article continues below advertisement

According to Noah, there is no official explanation as to how this incident happened. But he has a theory as to why things got so out of hand on that date specifically.

“You see this incident happened right before Christmas,” he explained in the same video. “And because of this, I believe many of the people in charge of moderation at TikTok had been given Christmas off so they weren’t at the office to stop this when it did happen.”

Noah also noted that TikTok never fully terminated this explicit content issue as similar incidents to this, on a much smaller scale, have continued to occur. For example, many filters such as the now-removed Pokémon 777 would show users corn when used.

Furthermore, Noah believes inappropriate content will continue to make its way onto the platform, much to TikTok’s chagrin. “Just remember that December 22 is where it all began,” he says at the end of his video.

Source: https://www.distractify.com/p/december-22-tiktok-meaning