About

THE Search Results for Thirst Trap TikTok Phenomenon refers to a widespread phenomenon whereby when a user searches for something on the TikTok platform, the search engine shows them obscene Thirst Trap content from female influencers that borders on pornography. Many called the phenomenon problematic or thought TikTok offered suggestive content. The discourse germinated from the discovery in 2024, culminating in memes posted in September and October 2024. Many memes mocked TikTok’s search engine and joked that typing a single innocuous word would always produce exciting results . It then became a challenge for TikTokers to find the most innocent and modest word possible that still resulted in Thirst Trap content.

Origin

On July 7, 2024, TikToker @imnotgdub posted a video in which he asked his viewers if their searches on TikTok also spontaneously produced thirst traps. He said he would search for things like “car” or “Spider-Man” and that TikTok would “somehow” find a way to show him “a girl shaking her butt.” His video on the subject has been viewed more than 10.1 million times and 852,800 likes in three months (shown below). He is currently the first Internet user to relay the phenomenon.

Spread

Later that month, on July 30, 2024, Redditor Usernamewasname posted to /r/TikTok, writing, “The search results are still unrelated,” adding, “I’m searching for the basics and there’s always a thirst trap. »

On September 16, TikToker @toebahnii posted a video with the caption: “I’m looking for anything on TikTok” and the results being represented by a butt emoji, gaining over 1.7 million plays and 254 300 likes in a month (shown below).

On September 27, TikToker @str4berryswitchblade posted a video with a text caption saying, “When I search for something on tt and all the results are just random butt shaking,” gaining over 4.3 million plays and 931,100 likes in three weeks (shown below).

On September 27, TikToker @kevinhart112 posted a screenshot of a person’s search results where each read a word like “food” or “weather.” The text’s caption joked about a friend saying, “I’m not a meat beater,” but his search history looked like that, implying he was finding explicit content with single-word TikTok searches. In three weeks, the photo received approximately 188,200 likes (shown below).

Non-viral discourse about the phenomenon also surfaced on Twitter/X during the same period. For example, on October 6, user below).

Various examples

Research interest

Unavailable.

External references