In the 1980s, a time predating the widespread use of the internet and social media, teenagers used Polaroid cameras to immortalize their daring antics in what they dubbed “Polaroid pic or it didn’t happen challenges”. These snapshots of recklessness became coveted tokens, circulated with pride in school lunchrooms, each attempting to outdo the last in audacity. With fax machines in the late ’80s, these perilous feats gained national attention. Regrettably, the survivors of these challenges went on to parent a generation notorious for today’s TikTok escapades, exemplified by the infamous “Tide Pod Challenge”.