Some legends just never die, for many millennials the term ‘blue waffle’ may bring up some traumatic memories of when they first heard of the term. But now it seems like it’s Gen Z’s turn to discover what a ‘blue waffle’ is as the term is trending over on TikTok. Whilst those who already know what it is may want to warn them just know that we can’t interfere, it’s a canon event.
What is a blue waffle?
If you really have managed to go without learning about what a blue waffle is until now, this is your last chance to back out before we delve into the gory details. The phrase has made a comeback on TikTok with creators warning people not to search up the term, of course, that’s pretty much had the reverse effect because that’s just how humans are. Essentially it’s a term used to describe an STD, of course, you can’t believe everything you read online, especially if that information comes from TikTok. the reason it got given the name it did was thanks to pictures floating around on the internet that seemingly showed female genitalia that had somehow swollen and turned blue due to the supposed disease.
On the subject of that image; it was pretty graphic and definitely scarred many curious minds who searched the term on Google images in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s. Thankfully, if you search for the term nowadays you’ll only get family-friendly images of a literal waffle (as in the food) that has been coloured in blue. The original explicit images are probably still out there somewhere, but I’m going to be honest, I don’t really want to find out if that’s true or not.
According to the rumors, the disease causes several other symptoms including itching, discharge and a build-up of pus.
Is it a real disease?
You’ll be pleased to know that this is not a genuine disease you can catch, numerous health sites like Medical News Today have debunked it. It’s just an internet urban legend that refuses to die. Of course, you could say it’s partially based on fact considering the supposed symptoms do share similarities with other STDs. The blue waffle is likely an amalgamation of a few well-known real infections.
To be fair, most of the videos that talk about it on TikTok are pretty quick to debunk the myth, in hindsight it seems silly that we ever believed it was a real disease, but then again, there were far less fact-checkers out there on the internet at the time. Nowadays if you search up that phrase you’ll be met with a dozen health sites disproving it and articles like this one you’re reading right now that describe what it is so you don’t have to experience it for yourself.
To summarize; blue waffle is a piece of internet history that’s probably best left in the past.