A mom's viral TikTok video, in which she claims her children ate purple sharpies, is causing panic online
- Christel Holland, a mother of two from San Diego, California, is garnering online attention after posting a TikTok video of her children in which they appeared to have bright purple mouths.
- In the clip, she joked that both babies ate purple Sharpies.
- In five days, the video has received millions of views and thousands of comments from concerned and outraged viewers.
- In a comment on the video — and in three follow-up TikToks — Holland clarified that the video was a joke and her children's mouths turned purple as a normal side effect of a medication for a fungal infection.
- Ultimately, Holland says that TikTok is "one big joke," and she has no plans to stop making viral videos.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Christel Holland is familiar with online attention for her TikTok videos; ten of her posts this year have racked up hundreds of thousands of views on the app. But the mother of two from San Diego achieved a new level of viral fame last week after uploading a video of her children — a video in which their mouths appear to be bright purple.
In the post, which has been viewed over 6 million times in five days, Holland shared an old clip of her 3-year-old daughter as an infant and then cuts to recent footage of her 1-year-old son.
"Throwback to when my daughter ate a purple Sharpie when she was a little baby and it stained her mouth for like a week," she says, "and then my son did it too."
"Only moms know what this actually is," Holland captioned the video, adding the "crying-laughing" emoji.
Despite racking up 1 million likes in just a few days, the video also spurred panic and outrage in the comments section from concerned viewers — with several calling Holland a "bad mom" and threatening to call Child Protective Services.
Holland was quick to clarify that the video was a joke and that her children had not, in fact, ingested Sharpies.
"Before anyone freaks out, they both got thrush when they were babies and the purple is actually a medication to get rid of it!!" she commented.
Oral thrush, a yeast infection typically caused by Candida albicans, is prevalent in babies, BuzzFeed reported — and the antifungal medicine used to treat the condition has a violet hue.
Other commenters were quick to jump to Holland's defense, noting that the video was a joke and encouraging "mom shamers" to leave the app.
"I was a little annoyed," Holland told Insider of the initial backlash. "A majority of the hate comments were a bunch of 10-year-olds that didn't read my caption or my comment explaining what it was. Lots of moms were standing up for me, though."
Despite the clarification and even some supportive comments, Holland continued to receive criticism — so she uploaded several follow-up videos addressing the situation.
"So, for everybody not reading the top comment, like this person," she says in the first clip, gesturing to a comment calling her a bad parent, "I don't neglect my kids. That's actually not a Sharpie, that is medicine for something called thrush, which is a yeast infection. Something about that purple stuff makes the thrush go away."
Holland uploaded another video addressing her critics who argued that her joke was inappropriate.
"I don't have to explain myself, but I'm going to because I like to stand up for myself. I'm a great mom. Everybody who knows me knows that I'm a good mom," she says in the clip. "Yeah, TikTok is just one big joke, people make dark jokes all the time, and it's funny. If you don't like dark humor, move on."
Holland concluded with a third video in which she showed that her kids are, in fact, doing fine.
"I'm a good mom, my kids are safe and sound sleeping in bed," she says in the clip, showing her sleeping toddlers.
Ultimately, Holland is brushing off the online hate and enjoying her most recent installment of viral fame.
While she doesn't exactly consider herself "famous," Holland has racked up over 300,000 followers on the TikTok and says that she's even inspired fan accounts.
Despite the criticism, the mother of two has no plans to slow down on creating viral content.
"Aside from that video, people love my content," she said. "It's pretty weird to say I have fans, but I enjoy entertaining!"
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