What motivated the Texas ice cream licker? Psychologists offer an answer

It’s just flat-out gross. People go into grocery stores, open a container of ice cream at random, lick the top, put it back in the freezer and then just walk away. Oh, and then they put a video of the entire grotesque display on social media for all to see.

The #IceCreamChallenge, as it’s now called, is just one of many social media trends over the past couple of years that has had people doing questionable things and documenting them online.

What’s going on in the minds of people who do these things? It’s what impulsive teens and adults do to get attention in the social media era, according to experts.

“It’s just a plain old version of antisocial behavior,” said Susan Whitbourne, professor emerita in the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department at the University of Massachusetts. “It is an antisocial act, and it’s outside the bounds of proper social behavior.”

The most well-publicized version of the #IceCreamChallenge happened late last month in a Walmart in Lufkin. A young woman, seen in a Twitter video that’s been viewed more than 11 million times, gleefully licked a half-gallon of Blue Bell Tin Roof ice cream before putting it back in the freezer. Police later identified a suspect and her boyfriend but said they won’t release names because she is a juvenile.

“We do not intend to pursue charges against her as an ‘adult’ and therefore what happens from here is at the discretion of the juvenile justice system,” Lufkin Police said in a statement.

Then there’s the case of a 36-year-old man arrested in Louisiana for a copycat of the Texas incident. He was allegedly recorded pulling a carton of Blue Bell Ice Cream from a freezer, opening it, licking the frozen dessert and poking it with his finger before putting it back on the shelf. Police say they found evidence that Lenise Martin III posted the video on Facebook, suggesting that he was seeking attention for the alleged misdeed.

And ice cream isn’t the only thing people are finding to lick. A new version of the “licking” challenge grabbed the spotlight this past week, when a video appeared on social media of a young girl grabbing a tongue depressor from a dentist’s office in Jacksonville, Florida. The girl licked it and then put it back in the jar.

Her mother, 30-year-old Cori Ward, admitted recording the video and posting it on Snapchat, authorities say. She was charged with a felony, tampering with a consumer product. She faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

“I had just been waiting a long time. I was just being silly with my kids,” Ward said. “It’s ruined my life right now. That’s how I feel at least.”

Just why do people take such risks — and then put video of it on social media? Experts explained that it’s just a high-tech version of folks showing off for their friends — and throwing in social media only makes everything worse.

“Added to this rebellious component of the behavior is the anonymity provided by social media and the disinhibition it enables,” Whitbourne said. “Once posted, these displays will generate a certain amount of social reinforcement (i.e. likes and thumbs ups), and so the behavior spreads.”

She compared it with kids going around a neighborhood and knocking over garbage cans, but the difference with the “licking challenges” and other social media challenges is “the attention factor.”