If I embarrass my baby on TikTok, will he stay my baby forever?

The other day, I was looking at my baby, and I had a little thought: Should I toss a slice of cheese on him? I had watched some videos on my phone of what appeared to be Kraft Singles smacking the faces of crying infants, rendering them stunned and bewildered. The videos had been spliced into a mash-up and served to me on Instagram as a looping carousel of orange squares thwacking babies silly. My baby was not crying, but that would give me time to prepare: Open the fridge, unwrap the slice, position the camera and take aim.

The phenomenon

of the “cheese-slice trick” (or the “baby cheese challenge”)

is mildly rude, but it is not new. I first saw the videos circulating several years ago. I sensed that they had returned to my feed because I had viewed a different social media trend involving kids, a pantry staple and the element of surprise:

the “egg-crack challenge”, a recent viral prank

in which parents film selfie videos of themselves cooking with their young children, only to – surprise! – forcefully crack eggs on their heads and capture the emotional fallout.