A mother-of-two was left mortified when her innocent picture of a science experiment went viral – after social media users mistook it for a SEX TOY.
Emma Holmes’ photo of a foamy substance caused by a chemical reaction attracted thousands of comments from users who saw a phallic object.
She had conducted an experiment with her children causing a reaction using hydrogen peroxide, yeast and warm water to foam out of two empty plastic bottles.
It is dubbed “elephant’s toothpaste” as it looks like foamy toothpaste being squeezed from a tube—but so big that it looks almost fit for an elephant.
But when Emma, 29, shared the image to Twitter with the caption “Garden science lessons!” she was bombarded with replies that it looked like a phallic sex toy.
It quickly went viral with more than 10,000 retweets. One tweeter quipped: “Sorry but I saw dildos in the garden” while another said: “I need my eyes testing.”
One user joked: “Thought it was a mum’s sports day” and another added: “So many folks on here have spent three months looking at the wrong kinda websites. Naughty people.”
One user asked what she had used to make the explosion and Emma saw the funny side, replying: “Two tablespoons warm water, one teaspoon yeast, food colouring, hydrogen peroxide – either 3% or 6% dish soap, empty plastic bottle. Boom – home made dildo looking mess.”
Emma, who lives in Leeds, West Yorks., with partner Ryan Potter and their children Harry, 9, and Isabelle, 7, said she was shocked by the reaction.
She said: “It was so funny, but so surreal. It has had like six million views on twitter or something, the internet is a strange place.
“I honestly didn’t see it at first, but now everyone has mentioned it, I can’t unsee it.
“Twitter has corrupted my mind.
“It just so happened that we used red food colouring and it turned it pink which made it worse, if it wasn’t that colour it wouldn’t look so bad.”
The family have been shielding during lockdown as Harry has asthma, so Emma has been home schooling while Ryan works on a farm.
Emma, a paralegal, added: “I thought nobody wants to be stay inside doing English and Maths when the weather is like this, so I decided to take them out and do something fun.
“I couldn’t believe the reaction, I’m only on Twitter to follow updates on the Leeds United matches and to follow a few legal blogs.
“But one innocent picture has gone worldwide it has been mental. I have been tweeted by people all around the world.
“I took the picture and posted it without checking it, I didn’t think anyone would mistake it for anything else.
“But that is the corrupted mind of Twitter. One of my friends commented and said ‘does anyone else think these look like dildos?’
“Most of my followers are just Leeds fans I never thought it go mental like this.
“I showed it to my dad and he was in fits of laughter. He was like ‘come on Emma, how did you not see it?'”
“I was just trying to do something fun for the kids, that will teach me to think in future.”