🧀 cheesed challenge 🧀

March 6, 2019 1:31 PM

Why people need to stop throwing cheese slices at babies' faces

Eater: Baby Cheese Challenge Sets the Internet Ablaze
WaPo: ‘Humanity is doomed’: People keep throwing cheese on babies’ faces for social media likes
NBC LA: Throwing Cheese at Babies Is the Newest Viral Internet Challenge

Youtube compilations: one, two, three, four.

Prior art:
Know Your Meme: Dog cheese
Daily Dot: ‘Dog cheese’ is the internet’s latest viral challenge, and Twitter loves it
Verge: This one’s for the dog cheese

posted by peeedro (80 comments total)

We were discussing recently appropriate uses for American Cheese (processed cheese product) and this fits the bill.
posted by The Toad at 1:38 PM on March 6, 2019 [10 favorites]

I. just. can't.

Glad you included badpeople tag
posted by terrapin at 1:38 PM on March 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

We live in a Fallen World stained with Murder and Corruption.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:39 PM on March 6, 2019 [10 favorites]

We live in a Fallen World stained with Bad Cheese.
posted by JanetLand at 1:40 PM on March 6, 2019 [9 favorites]

Nope, still not processing, even though they're using processed cheese.
just...what?
posted by medea42 at 1:43 PM on March 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

So this wouldn't work with actual cheese then?
posted by Fuchsoid at 1:44 PM on March 6, 2019

I think at this point we have to agree that the whole internet thing has run its course. Nothin' left to see, shut the place down, last one out please turn off the lights.
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:44 PM on March 6, 2019 [20 favorites]

Add this to the myriad reasons why Cheesoid shall not babysit in my home again.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:44 PM on March 6, 2019 [6 favorites]

As I was leaving the kitchen to go sit at my computer my wife looked excited and rushed past me saying, "Oh! I have to try something."

Confused, I continued to the living room and started reading my email. A few seconds later my wife says "Hey!" I turn around as she threw the cheese in my face.

Apparently I gave about the same look as the kids in these videos.
posted by NormieP at 1:45 PM on March 6, 2019 [55 favorites]

I am against this.
posted by salt grass at 1:47 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

when I was a kid, I used to think "dignity" was a silly, outdated concept, a stuffy abstraction that represented nothing of value, just something make-believe for old people to get their underwear knotted up about

looks like the processed cheese is on my face, now
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:49 PM on March 6, 2019 [34 favorites]

Some find the sudden covering of their face with cheese quite funny. Some cry. Some eat the cheese and move on.

New marshmallow test. What does your baby's reaction to cheese say about their future chances at university?
posted by betweenthebars at 1:51 PM on March 6, 2019 [16 favorites]

I guess the one variation of this I could condone would be throwing the cheese slice at/onto the phone camera, so that cheese appears to be on you, the cheese challenge viewer.
posted by salt grass at 1:52 PM on March 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

What does your baby's reaction to cheese say about...

...how terrible a nursing home they'll pick out for their parents a few decades later?
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:53 PM on March 6, 2019 [49 favorites]

All I know is I don't wanna be friends with anyone who thinks a 'viral internet challenge" is something to participate in or be entertained by.

Now excuse me while i go chase some kids off my lawn...
posted by OHenryPacey at 1:54 PM on March 6, 2019 [8 favorites]

I wonder if you could make a cheese launcher that would melt the slice via a laser pulse just before hitting the face. Not for babies, of course, but for the bad people.

If, y'know, God doesn't send a flood of molten processed cheese product to cleanse the Earth before you could do that.
posted by XMLicious at 1:55 PM on March 6, 2019

Back in my day they called this a Wisconsin Baptism: "In the name of Bart Starr, and of Brett Favre and of Aaron Rodgers I baptize thee. (splop!)"
posted by slkinsey at 1:58 PM on March 6, 2019 [19 favorites]

What if you could go back in time and throw a slice of cheese on baby Hitler? Would that be moral?
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:58 PM on March 6, 2019 [21 favorites]

Now excuse me while i go chase some kids off my lawn...
posted by OHenryPacey

Surely you mean "cheese some kids off my lawn"?
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:58 PM on March 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

What if you could go back in time and throw a slice of cheese on baby Hitler? Would that be moral?

Only if you didn't post the result to social media for Fake Internet Points.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:07 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

Surely you mean "cheese some kids off my lawn"?

Surely you mean "cheese off the kids on my lawn"?
posted by The Bellman at 2:13 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

I like cheese, and I don't like babies, so this gets a 3/10 from me, because the cheese comes into contact with a baby. Also, I think it's dumb and these people are awful. Awful people with their awful babies.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:13 PM on March 6, 2019 [16 favorites]

Someone out there is running experiments to see just how far we as a society will go to get strangers on the internet to acknowledge us.
Pretty far, it seems. I wonder what's next.
posted by rocket88 at 2:17 PM on March 6, 2019 [4 favorites]

I blame Reddit.
posted by JamesBay at 2:20 PM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

I wonder what's next.

People throwing babies at other babies and filming it in portrait mode, hoping to win cheese prizes.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:21 PM on March 6, 2019 [12 favorites]

Every Internet thing that comes along with “– Challenge” in the name is proof we do not deserve the good parts of the Internet.

It is also proof we profoundly deserve the bad parts.
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 2:24 PM on March 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

i want to dislike this but then i saw a cute babbu being face cheese'd and she/he laughed and now i just cant dislike this
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:27 PM on March 6, 2019 [5 favorites]

all the singled babies
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:30 PM on March 6, 2019 [67 favorites]

Cheesing a dog seems like a better approach. Given that cheese on the dog is likely to rapidly become cheese in the dog, the interests of the cheeser and cheesee are better aligned.
posted by irrelephant at 2:31 PM on March 6, 2019 [14 favorites]

Only funny when it's blue cheese.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:33 PM on March 6, 2019

Isn't this what dogs are for?
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:34 PM on March 6, 2019

this is as shitty and cruel as when jimmy Kimmel got parents to film themselves giving their kids awful presents
posted by brujita at 2:35 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

Isn't this what dogs are for?

Do NOT throw dogs at babies!!
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:35 PM on March 6, 2019 [17 favorites]

Every Internet thing that comes along with “– Challenge” in the name is proof we do not deserve the good parts of the Internet.

Challenges make the heart grow fondue.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:37 PM on March 6, 2019 [5 favorites]

Ok but how do they feel about cucumbers?
posted by rodlymight at 2:37 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

This is what we have by way of art and culture now. Some people think Picasso is stupid; some people see modern art and think 'my ten-year-old could do THAT, haw haw haw.' And some people feel that way about The Cheese Challenge. We're all fatally behind the curve; this is how it is now, nobody's turning the internet off, and the Cheese Challenge is gonna seem like DaVinci's notebooks compared to the next thing that comes down the pike. Embrace the cheese. It is individually wrapped for freshness.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:38 PM on March 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

I have inaugurated the Throw Cheese at Cucumbers Challenge. Vote early and often! Cheese and cucumber sandwich luncheon to follow.*

*bread not provided
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:44 PM on March 6, 2019

You know what's funnier and cuter than this? Tossing a dandelion at a baby's face. Or tickling their feet. Or rubbing a cantaloupe on their belly. Or balancing a pancake on their head. Just like, cheese seems like... the worst option? Is that the point? That this is the least fun thing that can be done with a baby? Is it all... just to make me feel old?
posted by phooky at 2:49 PM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

hey guys it's the drop lump of sodium into your own bath challenge!
posted by salt grass at 2:53 PM on March 6, 2019 [17 favorites]

At one stage of my life I was co-parenting three babies under the age of three (we had twins). It was two decades ago and I don't know what this says about my moral character but in our state of sleep deprivation and general exhaustion, we would have found this to be hilarious. And they were certainly throwing enough dairy products at us.
posted by mikelynch at 2:53 PM on March 6, 2019 [6 favorites]

Do NOT throw dogs at babies!!

Seriously; I mean a baby is mostly water—would you throw a gallon jug of water at a dog? They could be seriously injured.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:53 PM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

I just don't like how the cheese lands like a slap--it feels really mean-spirited.

It reminds me of the cat feeding scene from the Sandy Passage episode of "Documentary Now". There are multiple levels to that scene, the primary being that Hader's character is feeding the cats baloney and corn flakes. The second is how the baloney just slaps onto the refrigerator like a magnet and you realize that it's really not a beahvior we should expect from something we consume and consider "food". Processed cheese is in the same boat.

The fact that it slaps onto a forehead like food normally shouldn't is part of the popularity, I think. This wouldn't be nearly as popular if parents were lobbing meatballs at their kids' noggins.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 3:01 PM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

That's how I met my ex-wife. First night I met her she cheesed me off right in the bathroom of this very establishment.
posted by some loser at 3:02 PM on March 6, 2019

What is wrong with humanity
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:02 PM on March 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

The infernal machine must be destroyed.
posted by cirgue at 3:05 PM on March 6, 2019

I agree. Stop throwing cheese slices. Block cheese is much better suited for this purpose.
posted by Quasimike at 3:05 PM on March 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

I like to imagine it's just one person running around tossing cheese slices and making quick getaways.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:06 PM on March 6, 2019 [7 favorites]

I agree. Stop throwing cheese slices. Block cheese is much better suited for this purpose.
posted by Quasimike at 6:05 PM on March 6 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!]

Surely those little wheels of Babybel...
posted by Cookiebastard at 3:08 PM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

Cookiebastard, you just gave me a great idea! Now who wants to loan me a baby, I'm gonna completely cover it in red wax and we are gonna break the internet
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:15 PM on March 6, 2019 [10 favorites]

Just waiting for the Tex Mex apologists to defend throwing bowls of melty hot queso into baby faces as a legitimate regionalism.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 3:19 PM on March 6, 2019

Strike us, giant asteroid, it is time.
posted by nfalkner at 3:25 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

Moon, make sure you're videotaping when the giant asteroid strikes us
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:35 PM on March 6, 2019 [7 favorites]

news flash - NASA scientists have discovered a giant 1000x1000 mile slice of american cheese is hurtling through space directly at the planet earth
posted by pyramid termite at 3:36 PM on March 6, 2019 [8 favorites]

Just waiting for the Tex Mex apologists to defend throwing bowls of melty hot queso into baby faces as a legitimate regionalism.

Babybel vs. RO-TEL.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:50 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

I have no idea how these people got their cheese wedged onto their babies, or why.
posted by murphy slaw at 3:55 PM on March 6, 2019 [8 favorites]

Cheese is too delicious to waste throwing it at babies' faces. I find much more pleasure from framing my cat's face in the center of a gnawed out bread slice. Cat memes are the best!
posted by a humble nudibranch at 4:36 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

Lol everyone's moral outrage and wails of doom about silly cheese nonsense worries me more than the actual silly cheese nonsense.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 4:42 PM on March 6, 2019 [9 favorites]

Wait until you see the "360 phone flip nacho cheese bucket" challenge: first you fill a bucket with melted nacho cheese (ALL the way full, please!). Next, start recording a video on your phone and throw it in the air so that it does a full 360 flip and then falls into the nacho cheese. For epic bonus points you can throw the bucket into the ocean! Then you contemplate your life choices.
posted by Pyry at 4:48 PM on March 6, 2019 [5 favorites]

I like how the thread above this one is fawning over cute kids tripping over a door threshold and falling onto a skating rink, which probably actually hurts a bit, and meanwhile in the "I threw a slice of processed cheese onto a cute baby's face because it was funny" thread we have hand-wringing about the decline and fall of modern civilization.
posted by chrominance at 4:50 PM on March 6, 2019 [14 favorites]

The babies aren't wearing protective gear.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:58 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

They also have no choice in the matter.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:59 PM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

Wait until you see the "360 phone flip nacho cheese bucket" challenge: first you fill a bucket with melted nacho cheese (ALL the way full, please!). Next, start recording a video on your phone and throw it in the air so that it does a full 360 flip and then falls into the nacho cheese. For epic bonus points you can throw the bucket into the ocean! Then you contemplate your life choices.

Laurie Strode's granddaughter's boyfriend pulled this off but she wasn't super impressed.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:19 PM on March 6, 2019

I suppose if one tried to cheese one's cat, one would inevitably end up being harassed for cheese slices lovingly thrown upon the face for years to come.
posted by some loser at 5:48 PM on March 6, 2019

Do NOT throw dogs at babies!!

What about some chihuahua?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:57 PM on March 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

You guys I'm embarrassed to admit it but my baby can demolish a slice of processed cheese like nobody's business. She would probably enjoy this if she got to keep the cheese afterward.
posted by beandip at 6:18 PM on March 6, 2019 [4 favorites]

"Process Cheese" not "Processed Cheese".
If we're flinging things at babies, accuracy is important...
posted by madajb at 7:13 PM on March 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

I blame Reddit.
posted by JamesBay

Nah, I blame those shitty Jimmy Kimmel "prank your kids and film the reaction" stunts and the like that gained in popularity because, lol, kids trusting adults, am I right?
posted by ShawnStruck at 7:53 PM on March 6, 2019 [4 favorites]

Working hard to put food on your family.
posted by Segundus at 8:59 PM on March 6, 2019 [10 favorites]

There's never been a shortage of parents who treat their children like their pet cats, or vice versa. Now we just have videographic records of it, is all.
posted by rokusan at 10:51 PM on March 6, 2019

Apparently, I‘m the only one who immediately thought „a naked cheese throwing battle would be so much fun.“
posted by Omnomnom at 11:31 PM on March 6, 2019

As I was leaving the kitchen to go sit at my computer my wife looked excited and rushed past me saying, "Oh! I have to try something."

Make a clean break. It will be hard but time heals all wounds.
posted by bongo_x at 12:16 AM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

NASA scientists have discovered a giant 1000x1000 mile slice of american cheese is hurtling through space directly at the planet earth

Parmaggedon!
posted by chavenet at 2:37 AM on March 7, 2019 [5 favorites]

Ok but how do they feel about cucumbers?

I am greatly distressed, Aunt Augusta, about there being no cucumbers, not even for ready money.
posted by slkinsey at 6:59 AM on March 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

It seems pretty clear to me that the biggest reason to do this is to piss off all the people who think it's worth trying to start a moral panic over.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 7:55 AM on March 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

Process Cheese of the Final Judgment
posted by SystematicAbuse at 8:40 AM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

I think there is some room between "Huh, I think this kind of reflects poorly on the adults involved in making these videos" and "call your legislators and set up The Wickerman, this has to be stopped at all costs"
posted by salt grass at 8:40 AM on March 7, 2019 [4 favorites]

I told my 5 year old and my 7 year old about this...surprisingly, it was too stupid even for them.
posted by Omnomnom at 11:19 AM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

But what if the cheese was CG and you threw it at the Dancing Baby.AVI?
posted by straight at 12:07 PM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

The ice bucket challenge almost did that, there were a lot of people came close to injuring themselves because they didn't have an intuitive grasp of the density of ice water.
posted by peeedro at 12:23 PM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

listen, it's never too early for these babies to be exposed to the real american national pastime: taking advantage of confused people with whom you have a gross imbalance of power
posted by murphy slaw at 4:20 AM on March 8, 2019 [9 favorites]