Noam Chomsky Accepts Condom Snorting Challenge

Apr 05, 2018

Noam Chomsky, the 89-year old “father of modern linguistics,” historian, social critic, and political activist, has accepted the Condom Snorting challenge today.

Chomsky is self-described as a libertarian socialist, a sympathizer of anarcho-syndicalism, and is considered to be a key intellectual figure within the left-wing of US politics.

When accepting the challenge, he said “It’s gonna feel funny inside my boogers!” 

What is the Condom Snorting challenge?  Kids will unroll a condom and stuff it up one side of their nose, then plug the other nostril to inhale the latex as it slides into their throat. Finally they reach in the back of their throats with their fingers to pull it out their mouths.

Chomsky has long been a vocal critic of mass media.  In a lecture titled "The State-Corporate Complex: A Threat to Freedom and Survival," Chomsky spoke "Take a course in economics, they tell you a market is based on informed consumers making rational choices. Anyone who’s ever looked at a TV ad knows that’s not true. In fact if we had a market system an ad say for General Motors would be a brief statement of the characteristics of the products for next year. That’s not what you see. You see some movie actress or a football hero or somebody driving a car up a mountain or something like that. And that’s true of all advertising. The goal is to undermine markets by creating uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices and the business world spends huge efforts on that. The same is true when the same industry, the PR industry, turns to undermining democracy. It wants to construct elections in which uninformed voters will make irrational choices. It’s pretty reasonable and it’s so evident you can hardly miss it."

When sticking the condom up his nostril today, Chomsky said “Who wants to fuck my nose hole?”

Not everyone is as enthusiastic about the challenge as Chomsky is.  YouTube has denounced it as a dangerous stunt and has begun to remove videos.  The NRA has used it as an excuse to promote gun ownership: Condoms don't snort, kids snort.  Others have pointed out that perhaps it is not a real trend at all, but rather the media jumps at the opportunity because it is ratings gold.  [Since you're here, perhaps you'd like to pause and take a look at some of the ads from our sponsors.]

From Language and Politics, Chomsky wrote "You don’t have any other society where the educated classes are so effectively indoctrinated and controlled by a subtle propaganda system – a private system including media, intellectual opinion forming magazines and the participation of the most highly educated sections of the population. Such people ought to be referred to as “Commissars” – for that is what their essential function is – to set up and maintain a system of doctrines and beliefs which will undermine independent thought and prevent a proper understanding and analysis of national and global institutions, issues, and policies."

Last seen, Chomsky had already opened up a crinkly packet, tugged the slimy latex back and forth, and began to mumble "Gooooey streeeeetchy."

Chomsky last made the headlines this January for accepting the tide pod challenge.