Back in the old days, if you wanted 15 minutes of fame for doing something stupid, you had to film yourself being a moron with your video camera, mail the tape to America’s Funniest Home Videos, and hope that eventually your moment of humiliation and shame would be amusing to a bunch of complete strangers. It was a months-long process, and it was mostly out of your hands. Things are so much better in 2019. Now you can become a national laughingstock and ruin your life all on your own, with just a click of a button!

Erik Avanier, News4Jax:

A Jacksonville mother was arrested Thursday after stomach-churning cellphone video of her daughter licking a tongue depressor at a dentist’s office and putting it back in the jar went viral.

Cori Ward, 30, was booked into the Duval County jail about 11 a.m. on a felony charge of tampering with a consumer product without regard for possible death or bodily injury, according to jail records.

“Don’t tell me how to live my life.” How’s that workin’ out for ya, Mother of the Year?

I’ve always been creeped out by stuff like “David After the Dentist.” It just feels exploitative, and it makes me glad there were no camera phones and social media when I was a kid. But at least that was just a little boy acting all looped up on sodium pentothal or whatever. Why would you film your child committing an actual crime and then put it up on the Internet? Whoever coined the term “smartphone” was a wiseass.

This follows a wave of repulsive viral videos with various idiots across the country licking things they’re not supposed to lick. Some peabrain in Texas licked a tub of ice cream in a grocery store and made national news, so now it’s the thing to do. At least it’s keeping the cops busy. Lenise Lloyd Martin III, the Louisiana man who was just arrested for participating in the #IceCreamChallenge, summed up the thinking thusly: “All I wanted to do was be famous.” Was it worth the criminal mischief charge, Copernicus?

Maybe arresting people will stop this imbecility, but I doubt it. At least right now it’s only people’s tongues. I really don’t want to think about the next body part these brainiacs start rubbing on other people’s food and property, in hopes the video will go viral. But I think I’ll be avoiding any glazed donuts.