With around 90% of the nation on lockdown, after 38 states issues stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus, young adults around the country have much more spare time to take to social media platforms such as TikTok to document their quarantine experiences in the form of humorous memes.

On TikTok, the hashtags #Corona and #Coronavirus have been trending for the last month, collectively accumulating over 46 billion views.

TikTok, once a platform once used for dance trends, has quickly given college students a creative outlet to express their sadness about having their spring semesters cut short because of the virus.

However, all of these videos fail to display the actual threat that COVID-19 poses to people of all ages.

According to Statista, the majority of TikTok users are between 10- 19 making up approximately 37.2% of the users on the app. There is also a significant proportion of users that are ages 20-29, that make up around 26% of the users on the platform. While the app does attract a younger population, there are still a large amount of college age student users.

When the virus first broke out in the United States, the news that was circulating claimed that teens and adults in their 20s who did not have underlying health conditions, were not considered at a high risk of getting seriously ill from the virus. Given this information, teens on social media did not understand the risks that the virus presented so many of the memes that surfaced on social media shortly after colleges closed satirized the virus. .

One TikTok user that goes by @Mediumhuddy posted a video on March 9 that amassed over 1.3 million views where she mouthed the words “...Heart been broke so many times I don't know what to believe…” along to the song Heart on Ice by Rod Wave. Included on the screen is the text, “when your life is being ruined by some random person in China who ate a snake that ate a rat.”

Other videos posted on the site include one by user Olivia Ernstoff who post a video of her that got 16 thousand views where she said, “Day two of quarantine and I’m on house arrest with my mother and I’d rather get coronavirus and die than be in this house for one more day because I need a social life or I will die. Its either I die from Corona or I die from not having a social life.”

Some of the comments on this video include users saying, “OMG SAME,” or “felt that one,” to show their support for the message Ernstoff is sharing in her video.

“Some of the TikToks are getting out of hand,” said Daniella Iantosca, a first-year student at Ramapo College in Ramapo, New Jersey.“ I saw one video about a girl who said she would rather stay at school and get Corona than have to pack up and go home.”

In addition to these kinds of trending videos, a challenge surfaced called the “Corona Challenge” in which people were dared to lick toilet seats. One TikTok user named Ava Louise accepted this challenge, licking the toilet seat on a flight she was taking during her spring break on March 14. The video has since been taken down.

Louise was not the only user that participated in the challenge. Another creator who goes by the name Larz also participated in the trend by licking a toilet seat in a public restroom and, according to the New York Post, just days later he tested positive for the virus. This video has also been taken down.

Included in the #coronachallenge hashtag, there was also a trending prank where teens would go into grocery stores and lick the produce. This caused panic in one Virginia grocery store located in Purcellville, when teens reportedly licked the fresh vegetables and prompted police intervention., shortly after all of the potentially infected fruits and vegetables were removed.

The police in Purcellville responded in a Facebook post saying, “We have learned that this appears to be a disturbing trend on social media across the country, and we ask for help from parents to discourage this behavior immediately.”

In response to this “Corona Challenge,” the World Health Organization created the #safehandschallenge to encourage creators to post videos of themselves washing their hands. Their video was posted on March 13 using the caption, “Join the WHO #safehands challenge and show us how you practice #handhygiene to be safe from #coronavirus. Let’s fight #COVID19 together!”

Since the beginning of the outbreak of the coronavirus, the content on the matter had been a mixture of humorous and serious. However, more serious content began to be uploaded around the time when the virus started to reach the United States.

As more states began to ask residents to remain in their homes, other creators have chosen to take the quarantine as a time to make workout and dance videos with their families at home.

Iantosca said she shares that videos like these tend to alleviate some of the stress she is feeling about the situation.

“I have seen some funny videos, like kids getting their parents and grandparents to do popular TikTok dancing videos. While these are mindless videos, watching adults embarrass themselves trying to do these dances takes my mind off of what is actually happening,” said Iantosca.

While these comedic videos are made solely for entertainment purposes, they minimize the seriousness of the virus. Due to the lack of concern this is creating for the virus, many young adults are not adhering to stay at home orders and social distancing guidelines causing the virus to continue spreading,

In addition, some of these satirical videos created by college students have used this platform as a way to express their sadness for no longer being at school. Many of the videos feature students giving a tour of “Zoom University, “their at-home workspace for their online college classes.

Other videos, such as one posted by user @tiktokqueennineteen, that received 128 thousand views, shows a video of her mouthing the words, “Mental health zero, am I okay? No. Will I be okay tomorrow? Probably not. Hotel. Trivago,” as a play on the widely known Trivago commercial. The video was accompanied by the words, “when you ask a college student how they are doing after being sent home for the rest of the semester.”

“As a college student who recently moved out of school, with more free time I have been turning to TikTok for some mindless entertainment,” said Dina Wilson, a first-year student at Northeastern University. “All of the videos mocking online classes are so relatable and enjoyable to watch.”

TikTok officials have said they are trying to filter the top videos when someone searches coronavirus to be the videos from WHO.

According to Business insider, Tarik Jasarevic, WHO spokesperson, said "Particularly with this COVID-19 outbreak there has a massive 'infodemic' - an over-abundance of information – some accurate and some not – that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it.”

TikTok also provides a warning for users that while the company promotes creativity, they also advocate to make sure the public is not misinformed on important issues. They urge users to “Verify facts using trusted sources including the WHO or resources from your local government,” and provide links to verified TikTok profiles whenever they look up the word coronavirus.

The message appears as a colorful box with an animated image of medical professionals with the headline “Learn the facts about COVID-19.” By placing this before the actual content that is trending for coronavirus it may urge users to click on it before looking at other videos. Upon clicking on that message, users are redirected to a page of videos curated from organizations such as WHO and the Red Cross.

The videos posted under these hashtags, which were created and made trending by the users of the app, do not only showcase comedy, there are also videos from WHO that share facts with the younger users on TikTok.

For example, one video posted by WHO shows Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of WHO. In the video that has over half a million views, Dr. Ghebreyesus says: “Today, I have a message for young people: you are not invincible. This virus could put you in the hospital for weeks, or even kill you.”

Under the video, there is a link that directs users to other TikToks produced by WHO and other sources such as the International Federation of Red Cross that make videos with facts about the virus to inform the younger generation.

While these videos show the reality of the situation, they are not reaching as many viewers as the shocking “Corona Challenge.” The #coronachallenge has amassed 99.5 million views whereas, the #safehandschallenge only gained 24.3 million views. the Therefore, some of the teenage public might not know important facts about the virus.

“Understanding the seriousness of the virus is extremely important and TikTok definitely does not show that,” Wilson said. “Even though many of the videos are meant to be taken as jokes, they still make it seem like there is no risk for people our age.”