Young kids will inevitably hop on any trend to be considered cool or gain popularity amongst their friends, no matter how dangerous.
The current trend for attention? Damaging school-issued laptops by causing these devices to short-circuit by jamming various objects into laptop ports. In doing so, the laptop emits toxic smoke, which could cause potential burns or fire explosions.
NEW: Metro Detroit schools are warning parents about a dangerous TikTok trend where students intentionally damage Chromebooks for social media attention
Videos online show smoking or burning laptops
This is highly unsafe and exposes students to harmful fumes from burning metals pic.twitter.com/zlb9AqXT9G
— Unlimited L’s (@unlimited_ls) May 11, 2025
School districts nationwide are sending letters to parents about the “Chromebook Challenge” trend. Among the various laptops available, Chromebooks are cheaper devices that schools have purchased to aid students in their education. In February 2022, an estimated 50 million Chromebooks were utilized in the classroom.
While incidents continue to be reported, students are starting to face criminal charges for acting on the trend. For instance, a high school teenager in New Jersey faces arson charges for participating in the trend by inserting metal objects into the Chromebook’s USB port.
“This ‘challenge’ is reckless, dangerous, and has no place in our schools or homes,” Scranton School District Superintendent Erin Keating wrote. “There are reports from other districts who have had first-hand experiences with this trend, which have led to evacuations and property damage.”
By entering “Chromebook Challenge” into TikTok’s search bar, the platform redirects you to a warning page, prompting the user to “assess challenges and warnings.” It then details a four-step “Stop, Think, Decide, and Act” process to help users determine if an online trend is a safe practice.
However, keywords such as “laptop burning” or “school laptop” still reveal videos uploaded by students demonstrating the activity.
The captions attached to these videos all share similar themes — students hoping to set their school on fire (one video has a text that reads, “us burning the school computers because we want the school to burn down”) or have a less-than-zero grade point average.
Gone are the good ol’ days of harmless one-liners going viral from Vine — at least, the type of trend that would be popular when I was in grade school. Sadly, we’ve come to a point where school administrators have to issue letters to families to remind their children how to behave, and that damaging school property is not a good claim to fame.
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