Now there’s a black market for sugar

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Customs officers have a trained eye for drug and weapons smuggling. Authorities in Israel recently uncovered another criminal activity: sugar smuggling.

At Tel Aviv airport, they caught a couple trying to cross the border with several suitcases filled with hundreds of fruit rolls. They also found a dozen posts full of treats. In total, close to 300 kilograms were seized.

Sweet rolls can be filled as desired. A new Tiktok trend is to reel ice cream. Ice cools the colored rolls and makes them crunchy. The result: a cold and photogenic approach to egg rolls.

Since then, sugar has fallen short in various countries and its price has skyrocketed. “We took orders every day until our warehouse was empty,” says Brian Oberhänsli, Managing Director of Swiss online store Bestsweets. Roll-ups are especially popular with customers between the ages of 18 and 30.

Curious Tiktok trends continue to find their way into the real world. Freezing sour gummy bears and then filming yourself eating them is also popular right now because it makes a very special sound. In the “One Chip Challenge” test of courage, you eat the hottest chips in the world.

What attracts users to such Gaga exaggeration? “I call it the playground effect,” says Hera Zimmermann, 29, owner of social media agency Tings. “A group of ‘cool kids’ standing together. Everyone here is trying to prove themselves in these challenges in their own creative way.” Trends go viral when the barrier to entry is low and candies or chips are affordable for everyone.

The Tiktok hype surrounding the appetite-suppressing diabetes drug Ozempic is risky. Users, including those from Switzerland, describe how they lost weight with it using hashtags like #ozempicjourney. “People tend to self-optimize, unfortunately even a social media platform can’t get away from that,” says Zimmermann.

Eventually, high-demand issues go viral. “But it will be important for Tiktok to have a strategy and upload alerts for such incidents.”

Source : Blick