On July 7, 2024, a TikTok user shared a rumor reading, "BREAKING: The Project 25 group's offices have reportedly been receiving used tampons in the mail after Gen Z started a TikTok trend to protest the sick perverts who are so obsessed with controlling women." As of July 9, the TikTok post had received over 700,000 views, 130,000 likes and 16,000 shares.
The "Project 25" mentioned is Project 2025, a conservative coalition's policy plan for a future Republican U.S. presidential administration. Some people have voiced concerns over the initiative's recommendations, for example including "pro-life and pro-family policies" regarding abortion. We previously reported at length about the more than 900 pages from the Project 2025 initiative's book, "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise."
One TikTok user commented under the video, "Sooo where can I send mine?" The creator of the TikTok post responded with the real Washington mailing address for The Heritage Foundation – the conservative think tank leading Project 2025. That reply received well over 1,200 likes.
Another user remarked, "I love this for them. I just wish I wasn't in menopause." The creator of the TikTok post responded again, writing, "Recipe for fake blood is in comments and the address." The creator's reply displayed nearly 500 likes.
Other comments displaying thousands of likes indicated users believed the rumor was true. For example, several top comments read, "Gotta love when women women," "This brought me joy. Keep it up ladies!," "This is the best thing I've read all day," "Oooooo NEW TREND ALERT!!" and "I love Gen Z."
However, the truth was the TikTok post simply displayed a post from the X account The Halfway Post @HalfwayPost. The bio for The Halfway Post says it publishes "halfway true comedy and satire [from] Dash MacIntyre," adding, "I don't report the facts. I improve them."
In other words, while the rumor was not true and originated as satire, the repost on TikTok appeared to possibly lead some users to actually mail their used tampons (or "fake blood") to The Heritage Foundation's offices.
Another rumor previously published in the same X thread from The Halfway Post claimed, "BREAKING: The Project 25 group says women should be mandated to carry 'period passports' that track their menstrual cycles and must be kept up to date, and women must present these to police officers during random ID checks to monitor pregnancies." That, too was satire.
For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.