"The Sleep of Reason produces monsters."
Francisco Goya

"The Sleep of Reason produces Tik-Tok cringe compilations."
Pablo Smog

Francisco Goya was the father of the modern Tik-Tok challenge.  The acts of dangerous idiocy depicted in his work predate the sociopathic lunacy on display in the modern Tik-Tok challenge by at least 200 years.  From the "pole-vaulting over a charging bull" challenge, to the "shoot your parishioners in the ass" challenge, the base, malevolent stupidity depicted in Goya's work is shockingly prescient.  Maybe he was trying to warn us.  Maybe he realized faith in humanity was a poor investment, subject to wild fluctuations in the brains and spirit market, and simply drew the world as he saw it.  Acts of insane malevolence and all.

Whatever the case, what's going on with the girl in the first 30 seconds of this video?  I will confess to finding some ASMR value in it, but a frightening display of alien insanity it absolutely is.  Is that a language she is using?  What's she licking?  Is she putting rhinestones in a sunglasses case, so she can put them on her ice cream?  Or is that a hair curler, so she can groom herself with rainbow sprinkles when she decides to take off her virtual beanie?

Incomprehensible, completely:

As you may be aware, Francisco Goya made "aquatints," whatever that is.  I feel so dumb after 5 minutes of looking up examples of Tik-Tok cringe compilations, and watching the first 30 seconds of that Joey B. video 4 or 5 times, that I don't even want to validate a medium like "aquatint," because it sounds like something that requires brains and skill.  Not that drawing and painting don't, of course, but stupid people have at least heard of drawing and painting, which makes them valid forms of expression in our modern world.  "Aquatints," however, sound like things that require thought and brains to produce.  

In any case, Goya made an "aquatint" in 1799 titled The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.  As the "aquatint" clearly shows, once Reason passes out at its work desk, in the middle of writing something reasonable, and maybe even smart, the monsters are unleashed.

Were they Chinese monsters?  Strange befeathered app developers tasked with tormenting the West with self-absorbent madness?  From whence came these infernal cats, bats, and owls, staring at the camera with preternaturally-alert, horrifying malice?

What damage did these monsters do, to the emerging Age of Reason?

In this still from a selfie death compilation aptly titled Ridiculous Folly, a bunch of people are depicted chilling out on a tree branch, over a presumably-great and vacuous height.  Like people who climb waterfalls and stand in front of moving trains for social-media clout, these doomed rubes seem to think it's perfectly natural to bring the entire family to the brink of the abyss.  For storytime, perhaps, or a final, dying cup of tea.

"Ridiculous folly," indeed.

In similar sleeping reason fashion, modern clout chasers are encouraged to jump from speeding boats so they can break their necks on the seawater concrète, rushing at their feet.  The production of monsters, on an industrial scale:

Like boat jumping, Goya's "pole vault over a charging bull" challenge is self-explanatory.  It also looks like a really bad idea.

In the "eat a bowl of soup in front of your dying friend" challenge, participants were encouraged to torment starving, dying people by consuming the patient's final bowl of lukewarm gruel, while looking at something else with a look of salacious glee.

Tired of your parishioners?  No problem.  Once reason is asleep, you can simply shoot them in the ass.

Of course, you can always just have your friends kick your feet out from under you so you crack your head on the floor, perhaps causing "brain" damage and even death.

The Skullbreaker Challenge:

Or, if you're not ready for anything hardcore, you can walk around with a chair on your head.  Don't forget to check your aquatint app every 2.4 seconds for external validation.

Due to differences in legal restrictions on idiot speech, not all monsters are available in all countries.  Places where the citizens are "less civilized" than their first-world idiot counterparts may extend greater lenience toward more violent forms of horrific stupidity.  Mexican drug cartels, for example, have popularized the "cannibalize your headless opponent" challenge, to great, horrific effect.

Child-trafficking challenges are also popular throughout Latin America, especially near the border with the United States:

And in closing, if you're of a particular ideological bent, you may enjoy the "tormenting people praying outside the abortion clinic with a basket of baby parts" challenge, especially if you hang out with owls, witches, and weird people in the clouds who supply you with human bones.

Clearly, there is no shortage of examples of dangerously-stupid behaviour engaged in by people for whom reason has taken a dirtnap.  It seems that malicious beings with feathers and wings who wander around the sleeping corpses of rationality and common sense require neither a Chinese death-app nor an aquatint developer at the turn of the 19th century to set humanity on the path of self-destructive madness.  All they need is an emotion, a war, a bad turn of events, and people will devour each other and themselves with the ease of a tornado hurling a rhinoceros into the cavernous maw of endless nil.  They will throw themselves into the abyss, underhanded, even, like a softball player tossing a sock into the dirty laundry pile.  They will become the afterthought of life.  A nightmare floating through the leaves.  A nest of snakes and angry angels, forming in the unkempt hair of the artistically insane.

So, why should I limit my beware-ness to the Ides of March, when it's the Idiots of March, the Deadly Fools of June, the Preoccupied Alien Youth of July, I need to be aware of?

I will make sure to keep some Narcan on hand for my angels of reason, in the event they need to be resuscitated.  God help us when we return to the age of the "execute your messianic political opponents with methodical indifference" challenge.

Thanks for thinking and also glistening,