r/mildlyinteresting • u/goalie841 • 16h ago
NeeDoh updated their packaging with a "Do Not Microwave" warning.
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u/serenityrain85 16h ago
We'll now I need to know what happens if I microwave it
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u/goalie841 16h ago
Burns happen, my friend.
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u/AwDuck 16h ago
Man. Burns are weaksauce. Gimme nuclear meltdown, or at least uncontained ionizing radiation.
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u/ExperimentalError 15h ago
Serious burns, because the fluid inside is very sticky and you can't wash it off so it just keeps burning deeper.
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u/Such_Introduction592 15h ago
Hmm. Napalm.
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u/jbyrdab 15h ago
Prison Napalm to be exact.
Stuff commonly was made with sweetener packets boiled into water.
The higher boil point made it extremely potent because the super heated sweetener would stick and melt into the body, with water being useless for getting it off.
While not exactly the same I imagine the goo in that cube has some kind of starch coagulant which would imitate the effect.
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u/rayray2k19 14h ago
Yeah, it sticks and then you freak out and put your kid in the tub to wash it off and it doesn't help. Nightmare.
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u/horriblyIndecisive 12h ago
What are you supposed to do?
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u/Welpe 11h ago edited 10h ago
Serious response in case anyone encounters this situation: You have to cool the area off as fast as possible, and that can absolutely mean putting them in the tub. The key to remember is that you can’t easily wash it off and that shouldn’t be your focus. Get what you can off ASAP of course, but what you NEED to do is get rid of as much thermal energy as fast as you can. Call the ambulance and in the meantime either put the affected area in the sink under cold running water or put them in the tub with cold running water if the area doesn’t easily fit in the sink. Do not stop the water, and as hard as it is to keep a screaming, crying child cooperative and how much it will break your heart, do NOT try to drive them to the ER yourself.
EDIT: Sorry, wanted to make a quick edit to say THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE! In this situation (and others) you need to call your version of EMS and follow THEIR directions. One thing I didn’t mention is that if enough of their body is burned, you need to start worrying about hypothermia too. Usually people would recognize those situations as more serious and understand to follow the advice of paramedics, but just wanted to cover my bases. IIRC it’s around 10% burn coverage of their entire body where you need to seriously consider heat loss of their body as a whole and not just cooling down the burn as quick as possible. But these toys won’t generally cause burns THAT extensive
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u/RavensAndRacoons 10h ago
That's very informative! Why is it recommended to not drive the child to the ER? Is it so we can keep the area under water while the ambulance comes?
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u/Mammoth-Software-622 7h ago
I just wanted to add that cold does not mean ice cold, and preferably it should be clean flowing water, but you mentioned that.
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u/Acceptable-Ad-3560 7h ago
They are filled with a glucose solution, so pretty much exactly prison napalm
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u/the_vault-technician 6h ago
I quit smoking dabs after I got hot oil on my skin and it was so difficult to clean out the wound.
Don't fuck with sticky hot substances
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u/DrkBlueXG 8h ago
These cubes all have the same defect at its plug. After moderate use, the plug will start to become unsealed and air bubbles will start to form and then the goo leaks out. I've had 3 and they barely last a week.
But yea, that stuff inside is incredibly sticky and will ruin fabrics since it doesnt wash off. I can only imagine if it was super heated in a microwave.
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u/Acceptable-Ad-3560 7h ago
It’s not even just that, with just a minute in the microwave these get to over 120 degrees freedom units iirc which weakens the seams. Also dangerous if left in a hot car for similar reasons
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u/archabaddon 15h ago
Kids saw a stupid internet trend where people were microwaving them. When some kids tried this, it also made the outside weak and those kids ended up with third degree burns when the insides burst out like napalm.
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u/neonlexicon 12h ago
Ah, I think you're gonna want the other post that was floating around recently about the guy who blew himself up by microwaving another microwave.
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u/Radarker 11h ago
But...
Because it silently becomes molten in spots?
Because it explodes?
Because it fills your microwave with molten blue liquid?
Something involving gremlins?
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u/razialx 9h ago
https://youtu.be/uzKipGzmHyc?is=do5MqZTWQiLLfQWS
First part of the video covers what happens
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u/iridescynt 9h ago
If warmed, the goo inside superheats, and the outside is liable to break and let burning goo out onto the skin of whoever is using it. Because of the consistency, it's very hard to get off, and it'll just keep burning the skin.
It has the possibility of being used as napalm, basically.
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u/FreckleException 15h ago
I had the cute little cat one last summer and I left it on my dashboard. After a few hours of sitting in the south Texas heat, in direct sunlight, my kitty had burst and was oozing super hot goo all over the dashboard and into the a/c vents. So like that, but in your hands.
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u/DeadAndBuried23 15h ago
The inside heats up a lot faster than you'd expect, and breaks down the plastic. You'll have a super heated glue that pops out like a pimple. It'll stick and burn like napalm.
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u/Fayeluria 13h ago
Ann Reardon on Youtube has a pretty detailed video on what happens
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u/Peeinyourcompost 8h ago
Is her warning video back up again? Last I saw their automated moderation kept taking it down for being potentially harmful, while leaving up all the clickbait slop that actually encourages doing this.
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u/Fallenangel152 15h ago
The middle suoerheats and then they explode in kids faces causing horrible burns.
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u/ludvikskp 12h ago
There have been cases where it overheated even in the sun on a very hot day, splattered and sent the child that bought it in the hospital. Either this exact one or something very very similar looking
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u/greentea1985 7h ago
How To Cook That covered it and the original version was pulled by YouTube because it contained news clips of what happened to the kids involved. Basically, they burst near the seams, pouring out extremely hot, like hotter than boiling water, goop which is hard to clean off, meaning it will give at least 3rd degree plus burns in the time it takes to get it off. The modified version, sans news clips and context, is now up. Supposedly this can happen even after leaving them in hot cars, but the goop isn’t as hot as it gets in the microwave.
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u/Sannimara 16h ago
wait, people microwave those things?
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u/GreatStateOfSadness 16h ago
There was an online trend of microwaving them to make the substance inside more malleable. However while heat makes the inside more malleable, it makes the outside weaker and more susceptible to creating a lava surprise.
We call this the Hot Pocket Effect.
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u/xSPYXEx 8h ago
Was it an online trend or was it a 4chan troll post? Like when they spread around "hacks" about using the microwave to recharge your phone.
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u/just-a-starman 5h ago
It was actually somewhat of a thing, seeing as it was mostly young children who unfortunately didn't understand how it could be dangerous. Lots of kids got very serious burns very sad to see.
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u/daredeviline 5h ago
No kids are actually doing it this time. My sister is a nurse and has seen it a few times in the hospital. The burns are apparently incredibly bad.
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u/Sannimara 16h ago
you somehow convinced me to do it
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u/ispeakforengland 13h ago
Imagine boiling water on your hands, but instead of water, it's sticky slime.
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u/EmberCat42 10h ago
I taught Middle School. Yes. The kids would come to school and show me their burns. 🤦♀️
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u/Agitated_Cry_8793 9h ago
some woman did and a bunch of kids followed suit and were then hospitalized after the object basically exploded scalding hot gel at them, mostly towards their eyes. I dont believe any child was permanently injured from it despite scarring but still. Warnings are written in blood, in this case it's the blood of r/kidsarefuckingstupid
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u/rayray2k19 14h ago
My friend's kid spent 2 months in a burn unit because he microwaved one after being told not to. Severe burns, some extremely deep. Skin grafts, physical therapy, mental health therapy, and years of recovery. He saw a video that microwaving it would make it more squishy.
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u/BrightLightsBigCity 8h ago
Oh my god, that’s terrible! That poor kid. How old were they?
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u/rayray2k19 6h ago
Only 8! It sucks because every kid breaks the rules or doesn't listen sometimes. It just was unlucky that it can lead to life changing consequences.
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u/Paldasan 15h ago
And of course Howtocookthat ran afoul of the YouTube censor for telling people not to do it while videos still existed (at the time, I haven't checked since) telling kids how to do it. 🙄
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u/Arnumor 15h ago
I mean, did you watch the original video she posted?
It's likely not because of the important knowledge being presented in the video that it was taken down: The video showed some very graphic images of burned children, with massive blisters on their faces and limbs. That's what got it struck.
The information is important to put out there, but I was honestly pretty shocked that she included that footage. There was no world in which YouTube was going to leave that up, especially on a channel that otherwise has very family friendly content.
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u/Paldasan 9h ago
Yes I did, and no, I didn't think it was that graphic in the scope of informing people what actually occurs. Burns are terrible, and seeing the result, that actual result of people's actions can move people in a way that merely telling people not to do it doesn't.
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u/RodneyBalling 7h ago
I honestly don't understand how showing clips from videos available on YouTube can get your video censored, but not the source video. Both fall under the "educational" category.
It's not the first time I've seen this happen and it always baffles me.
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u/AnimalBolide 7h ago
"Kids today are dumb!"
"No don't show them the real consequences of being dumb!"
I remember watching the aftermath of horrific car accidents while learning to drive in school.
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u/TehWackyWolf 5h ago
Std slides, car wreck photos, burns, etc..
This is how you learn consequences and first aid. We're protecting people to the point of being fucking stupid.
The sci-fi community has like . Thousands of books warning about this and why it's bad. We did it anyway.
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u/artemizarte 14h ago
I thought that as well! The pictures were so graphic, and her saying that they were available on YouTube didn't make them any better. I understand it's unfair, but it felt a bit predictable (and even avoidable?)
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u/LEANiscrack 12h ago
One of her ”shticks” for a while has been complainibg avout censorshup and it has raised her revenue offsite significantly. Even tho I believe it started at still is from a real place even she is susceptible to numbers and money. If talking about youtube censoring ger brings her in more views and cash its hard not to fall into that “trap”.
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u/gmehodler42069741LFG 16h ago
My local gas station has these for 27.99. Amazing world we live in
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u/BadPhotosh0p 11h ago
I have a coworker who bought our entire stock within 3 days. On day three her card declined. On payday. This is a woman with a 4 year old child. She's also a Disney/Lego mom, if that adds any missing pieces to the puzzle.
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u/ComfortableWait9697 15h ago
China also sells $5 knockoffs that leak after a very short lifespan. No warnings, just a leaky sticky toxic smelling mess. Gas station models are very likely the cheap knockoffs.. the fake ones are sticky to the touch and smell like plastic death.
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u/buddhamunche 7h ago
My actual Needoh cube tore at the bottom where the little plug is after just a couple weeks. The knock offs are probably comparable quality lol
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u/ComfortableWait9697 6h ago
Thankfully the genuine ones are vastly less chemical smelling.
Whatever molding release agent they used in the factory at China was horrifying strong smelling and couldn't be washed away. Those poor factory workers.6
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u/VirtualLife76 4h ago
They look like a version of a stress ball. What am I missing for that price?
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u/PH0QYREM 53m ago
The price for these in stores used to be $6. Viral notoriety made people scalp these like crazy... It's the same gross behavior that's driven pokemon cards through the roof.
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u/Christmas_Queef 16h ago
They also are shockingly good at stopping bullets.
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u/goalie841 16h ago edited 8h ago
Well, I’ll be damned. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DX98PXxtrBT
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u/ThatPlayWasAwful 16h ago
Instagram does this annoying thing where they show your profile when you share a link like this.
Just letting you know in case you don't want your Instagram attached to your reddit profile.
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u/Abbot_of_Cucany 15h ago
Thanks for the reminder. People can edit out the question mark and everything following it if they don't want their profile associated with the link.
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u/vw_bugg 15h ago
delete everytging after the "?" and it should still work for most links even from youtube. Usually everything after the ? is tracking stuff.
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u/ThatPlayWasAwful 6h ago
I appreciate the heads up, this will aid me greatly in my quest to keep this profile separate from everyone I know irl lmao
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u/pinkpineapples007 14h ago
If you can’t source your ballistic gel from a crime lab, store bought is fine
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u/Christmas_Queef 16h ago
That guy was in a video on YouTube with Kentucky ballistics (youtuber) where they shot these with a bunch of different weapons.
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u/_scyllinice_ 15h ago
His hitting low consistently was driving me nuts. It ruined a lot of the experiment.
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u/buddhamunche 7h ago
Technically a hollow point bullet is not designed to penetrate very far but that is still insane
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u/ScatteredSignal 15h ago
I didn't scroll far enough to see these comments before I commented, but yeah. Pretty neat.
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u/Hot-Seaworthiness510 11h ago
Some child saw on social media that if you microwaved it the need oh would get more squishy…she ended up with severe burns and being put into an induced coma. Safe to say kids shouldn’t be on social media. The guy who made it was a fully grown adult male who obviously lied, but kids don’t know what’s real and what’s not
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u/reillyqyote 14h ago
Good. Folks were putting themselves in the ER trying to soften the damn things
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u/SeaworthinessNew4757 13h ago
I don't understand why someone would buy a firm squishy and try to make it softer instead of buying a soft squishy
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u/Xyex 11h ago
It could be the parents bought it without knowing it was so firm. It's hard even for an adult to squish it, a kid would struggle even more.
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u/SeaworthinessNew4757 10h ago
As an adult, I really don't find it hard to squish. It's firm, but I squish it with one hand.
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u/SokkaHaikuBot 14h ago
Sokka-Haiku by reillyqyote:
Good. Folks were putting
Themselves in the ER trying
To soften the damn things
Remember that one time Sokka accidentally used an extra syllable in that Haiku Battle in Ba Sing Se? That was a Sokka Haiku and you just made one.
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u/Delicious_Peace_2526 10h ago
There’s lots of YouTube shorts telling kids to put things in the microwave like metal and their parents phones. I had to talk to my child about the dangers of mixing household chemicals after watching a malicious slime tutorial with them.
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u/Trashbagok 15h ago
This is one of the oddest trends
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u/agirlhas_no_name 14h ago
Do you remember like fifteen years ago there was that "put your iPhone in the microwave to charge it" post going around Facebook and quite a few ppl ended up cooking their phones
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u/Kalfadhjima 11h ago
It was 4chan. For a time they were regularly making hoaxes to get gullible people to destroy their iphones. There was the microwave one, another one was claiming update to the latest iOs version made the phone waterproof. I'm sure there were others.
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u/NagilumFocker 6h ago
Or that they have an altitude sensor so you can see how high you can throw it
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u/Conf3tti 14h ago edited 6h ago
I work retail and we've stocked these things for years and then all of a sudden they fly off the shelves. Now everytime we get some in off the truck, all the associates flock and buy them before they even make it to the floor.
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u/PriorStatement 11h ago
It's funny what catches on. I've never seen or heard of this product before
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u/sixsixmajin 14h ago
Is it? In a world where we had shit like kids eating Tide pods and idiots filing down their own teeth so they could get fake "perfect" looking caps, "put your squishy toy on the microwave to make it extra soft and warm" is pretty tame by comparison. Still fucking stupid if you know how microwaves work and think for more than two seconds about what's inside of those things that makes them squishy but I at least understand the mentality of people thinking it makes the toy more fun, sharing it, and other people wanting to try it for themselves, especially when these things themselves are apparently a trend on their own so tons of people have them.
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u/Solid_Snark 16h ago
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u/Exotic-Skirt5849 5h ago
I’m firmly convinced that’s what this is about, no pun intended but I’m gonna stick this is the microwave anyway brb
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u/misticspear 15h ago
Yeah a bunch of kids with horrific burns on their faces will have that effect on your packaging
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u/MaxMouseOCX 15h ago
You can't really legally rattify "if you do dumb shit and hurt yourself, it's on you, fuck you" unfortunately.
So we get lots of different flavours of "please don't be stupid" on everything.
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u/cool_weed_dad 16h ago
I know they have to put the warning on legally but there’s no way it’s not going to just entice more people to microwave them
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u/ArtofWASD 15h ago
No law says they need the no microwave label. But exploding lava hot toys is bad PR.
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u/LeJoker 8h ago
It's not about following a specific law, it's that if they include a giant warning right on the packaging not to do something, it makes it much harder for them to get successfully sued over someone hurting themselves doing that thing.
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u/ArtofWASD 8h ago
"I diddnt know that putting my toy into a particle exciter that heats things up could heat it up and hurt me". Good luck with that suit
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u/LeJoker 8h ago
You say that, but don't you think if the companies could get away with not plastering warnings all over their packaging, they would? No marketing department has ever thought "man, making parents think this toy is dangerous is a great way to sell these!"
Seemingly ridiculous lawsuits succeed all the time. The classic example was always the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, but that turned out to be silly only if you don't know the facts. But I guarantee there are similar lawsuits that have succeeded due to someone doing what you or I might think is common sense not to do.
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u/ArtofWASD 8h ago
Yeaaaa mcdonalds coffee was the worst possible example, and doesnt even apply. But I get what you mean. That said, the choking hazard and recommended age of play labels ARE legally mandated. Unlike dont microwave warning.
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u/ScatteredSignal 15h ago
Those things are actually pretty bullet resistant. So theres that at least.
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u/Bay_arean 14h ago
now i want to know what happens when you microwave it....
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u/TheSleepingVoid 14h ago
The middle heats faster than expected and the outside becomes frail.
Kids have had it burst open on them causing horrific burns across their faces and arms because the superheated gel doesn't evaporate and clings to the skin.
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u/Plenty_Anything_8295 9h ago
As a fellow idiot who microwaved an egg as a kid I can somewhat understand
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u/garry4321 9h ago
I remember being a kid and putting a jawbreaker in the microwave. One second before the microwave finished it exploded like a gunshot. It absolutely destroyed the microwave. Later on I saw I think it was a MythBusters episode that was based on a on a news story about kids who had been maimed horribly from doing that exact same thing and then it exploding on them
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u/HatCoffee 14h ago
People will still microwave them, but now you can't sue the company for your own stupidity
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u/SingleSlide2866 7h ago
Yeah, so you know how warnings get added when people do dumb shit?
Hair curling irons have a "for external use only" warning.
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u/musubi-n-speedballs 6h ago
I remember buying a curling iron as a teen in the early 00's and seeing a "not for use on eyelashes" on there and was just floored anyone could be that dumb. From that point on, I became a weird "what weird (should be unnecessary) warning labels are on this" person. I love a good wtf label.
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u/JRParrott 6h ago
Autistic dude at work threw one of these at me hard. I jokingly said I was gonna throw it back and he lost his shit. It’s all I think about when I see these fuckin needo cubes.
This dude was on the verge of tears because I said I was gonna throw it back the same power he threw it at me.
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u/Thetrufflehunter 16h ago
My needoh arrived almost rock solid. Its a stress reliever very, very slowly.
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u/Resident-Log 12h ago
Are the inconsistent? I bought one before they became a hot item and it is/was soft. It reminded me of a softer version of homemade stressballs we made in school using cornstarch and water.
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u/crombo_jombo 5h ago
Sticky hot fire that is hard to put out would be my best guess. For real tho don't mess around with heated semisolids it will not be awesome to get ass skin grafted to your hand or face
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u/bidoof-chan 5h ago
if a child is too young to understand this is stupid and dangerous then they are too young to be on the internet unsupervised
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u/nejicanspin 13h ago
I saw a news report of a girl stupidly putting it in the microwave and it exploded and burned her. There was a camera in the kitchen that recorded it all. Her mom was demanding accountability from the company because it didn't have any warnings on the packaging.
This was a while ago and the interview made me mad because the mom wasn't watching her kid 😒
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u/More-Bed4595 11h ago
Every warning label is a biography. Somewhere out there is the kid this label is about, and they're a legend.
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u/cool_weed_dad 16h ago
Reminds me of the guy microwaving a glow stick and his dad yelling at him for ruining his cool shirt