“Low GPA Activity” meme turns into school trend of kids setting their Chromebooks on fire

Videos of kids setting fire to Chromebooks are going viral in a supposed TikTok "trend," causing outrage and debate over whether there's a new wave of classroom vandalism spreading, or if we're seeing another round of internet-fueled moral panic.

Though some are cracking jokes, footage of Chromebooks smoking and going up in flames has teachers seriously concerned that the trend is spreading and encouraging vandalism in schools. Others are drawing comparisons to previous online ‘trends’ such as 2018’s Tide Pod Challenge. The firestarter method? Shoving pencil lead or metal into laptop charging ports.

What the videos show—and what's really happening

The videos typically take place in classrooms and show Chromebooks emitting black smoke as students watch on and film from nearby. Many are tagged with phrases like "anything but work" and "low GPA activity"—the latter of which now shows a content warning as of May 13.

One viral video posted to TikTok on May 7, 2025, by @backyardiganundercover, is overlaid with text reading, "pov a kid sticks lead in a chromebook and now the computer is smoking"—referring to the method used to start the fire, which typically involves inserting small metal items like pens, pencils and staples into the laptops’ charging points. 

The video has accumulated over 291K views and thousands of comments, many of them from kids and teens joking about the trend. “What do you mean I have to pay,” one person said. “Idk, I just opened it and it started smoking”, another commented. 

Another video has 14 million views and shows a similar scene. “Did the laptop elect a new pope,” user Armano said, drawing parallels to the recent papal conclave. “The F students are inventors”, others added, referencing a current meme. 

Not everyone was in on the joke. “It’s not funny tbh,” someone else added. “It’s low-key disrespectful to destroy stuff people let you borrow? Be mature for once.” 

The videos have also ignited further debate among cultural commentators and news outlets. “I feel like this is one of those things where a kid sees it online and doesn’t think it’s actually real,” said one host on The Garden State Podcast, who compared it to the Tide Pod challenge. 

Are kids actually setting fire to Chromebooks?

But just like Tide Pods—how much of this is occurring in reality vs online moral panic? Teachers flocked to a recent Reddit post on the r/teachers subreddit to share their thoughts on the trend and how widespread it actually was. 

“Several of my 8th graders were doing it this week. Thankfully nothing major happened, but I did write them up,” user Jader9377 confirmed. “Oof, we had the fire alarm go off today for this exact reason,” added Heroic00. “I work in a K12 as a middle school teacher and sounds like a high schooler did exactly what was described above.” 

“What fresh hell is this?” someone added in disbelief.

Others debated over what was causing it. “The genesis of this was in like 2021 when kids found out that the mask string could saw through most anything”, one commenter said—referring to a wave of vandalism-related trends from 2022 dubbed "devious licks" that involved kids sawing through chairs with Covid masks, stealing soap dispensers, and clogging toilets. The Washington Post would later report that this was a deliberate publicity stunt orchestrated by Meta, though the company would go on to challenge this. 

Regardless of whether or not these videos constitute a trend, their consequences are visible. On May 12, Live5news reported that a 15-year-old student had been charged with third-degree arson after using a mechanical pencil to set a Chromebook on fire at Belleville High School, New Jersey. 

“The message is ‘Parents, please watch your kids.’ There are serious implications for doing something wrong like this,” Belleville Police Chief Mark Minichini told Live5News. 

The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post “Low GPA Activity” meme turns into school trend of kids setting their Chromebooks on fire appeared first on The Daily Dot.

dailynoti coindeskcrypto cryptonewscrypto bitcoinmymagazine mybitcoinist cryptowithpotato mycryptoslate fivenewscrypto findtechcrunch journalpayments nulltxcrypto newsbtcarea