Just when you thought online challenges couldn’t get any more bizarre, Chinese social media is being engulfed by a new fruity craze.
Young people compete to eat strawberries without using their teeth.
The craze grew after a Jan. 11 post on Xiaohongshu, China’s equivalent of Instagram, detailed how to smoke strawberries.
According to a post by user @Aqing, participants must swallow all of the red pulp, leaving behind the seeds, which are connected to the core by white veins.
The perfect result is a strawberry skeleton floating beautifully in a glass of water.
In recent days, young people have been posting photos on social media of their strawberry juice-sucking challenges, earning them the nickname “Leech God” after the insect known for its juice-sucking powers.
One observer joked that she sucked so well that “it feels like the air is getting thinner.”
“I thought it was the new Chinese kung fu,” said another.
One person in Xiaohongshu even described this practice as “kissing practice.”
Some were surprised by the results, saying it helped them learn about the internal structure of fruits.
Experienced suckers say that to successfully complete this challenge, the strawberries you pick must be red, half-raw, and well-shaped.
A Xiaohongshu user named @Wuxidixi took to the challenge and posted pictures of himself sucking on bananas, kiwi fruit, and frozen pears, a winter specialty of northeastern China.
Her bizarre stunts have led to some strange requests, with one person asking if she could help suck air out of her vacuum storage bags.
This isn’t the first strange social media trend involving strawberries.
After 2022 Winter Olympic champion Irene Gu posted a selfie with a strawberry in her mouth, a mini-trend started among her fans to imitate her pose with the fruit.
Nowadays, some people slice strawberries and place them on a heater to give the room a natural strawberry scent.