Water is essential to life, and it seems to be just as essential to TikTok! In fact, the wet stuff is a key theme on the Chinese social network with 1.7 billion users. The liquid even has its own hashtag, seen nearly 50 billion times, and there are endless recipes, trends and challenges based on water. But H20 isn’t always used wisely… Take vanilla or banana syrup, add candy or cotton candy powder, ice and then water, and you have the latest trendy cocktail riding high in a TikTok category called “WaterTok," the name of the hashtag used for posting this type of recipe. And that hashtag totals nearly 103 million views to date. The aim of this new online craze is to entice the community with tasty recipes based on an ingredient that’s often considered boring and flavorless: water. The goal being to encourage people to hydrate.
The originality of the creations lies in the array of powders and dry preparations (often synthetic) used to recreate the flavor of a banana split or a piña colada from a simple cup of water — usually a Stanley branded cup, by the way. TikTokers also use these vitamin-laden solutions sold in drugstores to boost their energy or immunity. In the US, these products are part of everyday life, seen as an aid to hydration. Sometimes, on TikTok, the concoctions created by followers of this “WaterTok" trend can be truly impressive, drawn from a selection of a hundred or so different products, from various flavors of syrups to colored powders of all kinds, as is the case in this recent video by @silverlininlessons, which has 1.7 million views.
It’s hard to establish the exact origin of this tidal wave of home-flavored water creations, which are also seen under the “flavored water" hashtag, with 325 million views. But one thing is sure, its success is driven by two factors: a desire to lose weight, if not to ditch soda for water, but water with more flavor. One TikToker, called Tonya Spanglo, even told Fast Company that she never really drank water before… up until her weight-loss surgery.
From “WaterTok" to “spa water"
Beyond being one of the social network’s many “culinary" fads, the obsession with all things water-based is a broader trend on TikTok. Countless water-based recipes have been shared on the site, sometimes promising nutritional or health benefits.
Just a few months ago, TikTok promised to fight winter ailments in a natural way by dropping an onion in water, creating — hey presto — “onion water." Posted at a time when the United States, like many other countries, was facing a triple epidemic of Covid-19, bronchiolitis and flu, these videos purported to help those with a fever or blocked sinuses thanks to an age-old ingredient, whose decongestant virtues have long been known. At the time, the “onion water" hashtag scored several million views on the social network.
To understand the extent of TikTok’s obsession with water-themed content, just head to the site and take a look at everything and anything relating to this essential element. From a special “water" filter, with 353.4 million views, to the “waterchallenge," with videos viewed more than 1.6 billion times, the molecule that supports all life on Earth has its own hashtag, with nearly 50 billion views.
However, water is not always used wisely. Take the recent “30-day water challenge," encouraging users to drink 4.5 liters of water per day to get beautiful skin and banish headaches. In the case of this challenge, doctors warned TikTokers that the excessive consumption of water can be bad for health, because it leads to an imbalance of blood salts, even leading, in rare cases, to potomania, an eating disorder involving the excessive drinking of liquids, especially water.
Some water-based recipes have even been the subject of controversy, as with the appropriation of a Mexican culinary tradition. Dubbed “spa water," a mixture of water, sugar and fruit, it was essentially a rebranding of “agua fresca," a concoction that the Latin American community, and especially the Mexican community, has been making for a very long time. The TikToker who thought she had ingeniously jazzed up a simple glass of water ultimately had to apologize to the Latino community and delete her video. But it was too late: her post had already spurred a wave of humorous posts highlighting this cultural appropriation.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)