TikTok door kick challenge: Is it really a widespread trend?

TikTok trends have overtaken social media in waves since the app began growing rapidly in popularity in the late 2010s. Mainstream media in particular often reports on the latest trends that appear disruptive or wild -- but are trends like the Door Kick challenge really as widespread as many outlets might have you believe?

Last month when the viral Chase Bank Glitch became the main topic of conversation online for a few days, one TikTok user and social media researcher pointed out that the glitch was likely a hoax. And this could be evidence that teens kicking residents' doors might be another example of this online phenomenon.

This is, admittedly, a little different than the Chase glitch or, as the above creator pointed out, the Tide Pod challenge from the mid-2010s. In these instances, there was a lot of content made about these so-called trends -- but not many posts actually showing people participating in the trend. The biggest tell of an internet hoax is that there's mostly talk with little show.

Allegedly, the doorbell camera videos news outlets are showing and residents' complaints of door kicking are real. And there's no doubt it's happening at least a little bit -- it's being described as a more annoying and destructive version of Ding Dong Ditch, which has been around forever, way before TikTok.

But when you actually go to TikTok and type "door kick" or "door kicking" into the search bar, you're not met with random videos of people kicking doors. Instead, the search results are clips of different news outlets and creators talking ABOUT the Door Kick Challenge. What you don't find, at least near the top of the page, are videos of people actually participating. And even those videos, if you can find them, are questionable. Are they really participating in a trend, or has the trend become to play the part of a participant when few actually exist?