What Is 'Sleepy Chicken' And Is The 'Nyquil Chicken Challenge' Real?

The internet loves to come together to meme on disgusting food, whether it's a monstrous concoction like pilk or a foul urban food legend like pissy shitties. Some foods cross the line between simply disgusting to possibly deadly, though, like Nyquil chicken, a truly revolting dish made of, you guessed it, NyQuil cold medications and chicken. Also known as sleepy chicken, this dish has been going viral online for years now, routinely inspiring alleged internet challenges and scaring the public at large. Here's how it started.

Where Does Sleepy Chicken Come From?

On April 1st, 2017 (that's right, April Fools Day) an anonymous user of 4chan's /ck/ (cooking) board posted an in-depth play-by-play of themselves creating a dish coined "Sleepytime Chicken." The post contained photos of the making and cooking of the dish from scratch, which includes boiling chicken breasts in NyQuil. The user finishes the dish by wrapping the chicken in a tortilla and serving it (assumedly to themselves) with sour cream as fellow anons beg them to please for the love of God stop what they're doing (post shown below, click to expand).

Images from the thread were reposted across the internet over the following months, including on /r/shittyfoodporn, where it gained over 3,500 upvotes. Some people even attempted to make the dish themselves. In 2020, a video of a TikToker making NyQuil chicken went viral (it's deleted now) sending the dish mainstream and sparking a media frenzy about a Nyquil chicken challenge. Doctors and the media began warning people about the dangers of mixing NyQuil with chicken and tried to stop people from allegedly making the dish. Terms related to the dish are even banned from TikTok's search bar now and videos allegedly making it, whether they intend to eat it or not, are routinely removed from the site.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7027571012942318853

How Is Sleepy Chicken Used In Memes?

The most popular memes about NyQuil chicken make jokes about how gross the idea of sleepy chicken is. These mostly include skits and image macros. On TikTok, you'll also find lots of joke videos where people make the dish and react to the idea of the trend, as well as react to stories about the sleepy chicken trend.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7145854892400250155

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7145553576826555694

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7145579915516087595

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7145588175832943915

Is The Sleepy Chicken Challenge Real?

Right now, the media is in another frenzy about sleepy chicken, with even the FDA warning people against cooking chicken in NyQuil. The majority of the news articles mention TikTok as the main source of the dish's spread. While many NyQuil chicken videos have been deleted now, the trend has never seemed to be that large, with most of the videos of people making the dish never showing them eating it. That's not to say nobody has eaten NyQuil chicken, but the majority of it does seem to be jokes. Regardless, it's always good to remind the youth of today that they shouldn't eat chicken soaked in cold medication. We don't want another TIDE Pod challenge situation on our hands.

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For the full details on "NyQuil Chicken" meme and viral story, be sure to check out our entry on the meme here for even more information.