If you’ve spent any time on social media in the last decade, you may have accidentally come across the term “Blue Waffle STD.” If you’re lucky, you kept scrolling and never looked back. But if for some reason the term has piqued your curiosity—or, say, some clever Internet prankster got the best of you—then you may have seen the now infamous image we talked about today. And if this whole thing triggers a memory that you had successfully blocked, please accept our sincerest apologies.
The topic of Blue Waffle disease first entered the collective consciousness of social media users in 2010 when a meme of a waffle painted blue made the viral rounds with the caption “I bet you can’t find me on Google Image Search.” ‘ Those who took the bait were greeted not with images of turquoise-hued breakfast foods, but with a very graphic depiction of apparently infected female genitalia (which happened to be blue, by the way). Despite users’ attempts to erase the image from their minds, the shocking image… which we will not link to here… remained in the public consciousness. It wasn’t long before the unfortunate condition became known as the Blue Waffle STD – a condition that literally turned vaginas blue.
The good news? The Blue Waffle STD is not real. In fact, there is no such STD that changes the color of your genitals to blue or green or sky blue or aquamarine or whatever. It’s completely made up. Experts concluded that the photo was either photoshopped or physical manipulation (dyes, makeup, etc.) was involved.
As is often the case with Internet hoaxes, the Blue Waffle myth took on a life of its own. Trolls made up (and of course shared) crazy stories confirming the existence of the STD and its origins, causing an online frenzy among the most gullible sectors of social media users.
If you’ve fallen for the prank, you’re certainly not alone. The internet was set on fire with people wanting to know more about the mysterious (and again fictional) disease. In one notable case, a New Jersey elected official addressed the “epidemic” at a City Council meeting, claiming that the Blue Waffle had already claimed “85 lives” and that the threat “10 times bigger… than the AIDS virus.” It turns out that her quest came about through a convincing April Fool’s joke.
If you still have doubts about our claims, we would of course refer you to Dr. Amy Whitaker, assistant professor of obstetrics/gynecology at the University of Chicago Hospital. In an article for the Women’s Health Foundationwrites Dr. Whitaker:
“There is no disease known in the medical world as ‘blue waffle disease’. There is no disease that causes a blue appearance on the external genitalia. I had never heard of this until you wrote to our section and asked about it. The common belief among medical professionals I have spoken or emailed with about this is that it is a hoax; the photo and the ‘fake’ disease were used to lure people to a website.”
There you have it. Despite what you’ve heard, despite what you’ve seen, the mysterious Blue Waffle STD is nothing more than your latest edition of “Don’t Believe Everything You Read on the Internet.”