December 22 Incident — Meme with caption 'December 22 Was A Terrible Day For TikTok!' above an image of a person in silver outfit on a chair with 'Me Fr:' text

December 22 Incident

2022eventsemi-active

Published October 17, 2026

The December 22 Incident refers to a stretch of days in late December 2022 when adult-content slideshows, often featuring hentai images, slipped past TikTok moderation and spread widely on For You Pages. Users spent much of 2023 posting jokes, lore videos and conspiracy theories about why the content was allowed to go viral.

tiktok memes slideshow memes platform censorship memes hornyposting memes 2022 memes

Overview

December 22 Incident, also known as the TikTok Slideshow Incident, describes a window roughly between December 22nd and December 25th, 2022 when TikTok's photo-slideshow format carried explicit material, including hentai art and nudity, into mainstream For You feeds without being pulled down1. The format worked because slides advanced one at a time, so a benign cover image could sit over NSFW art hidden a few swipes deep, and TikTok's automated systems appear to have missed the inner images for several days2.

Talking about the incident became its own joke format on TikTok through 2023, with creators treating the week as a lost artifact that mods accidentally allowed3. A common video style is a mock-serious retelling, overlaid on blurred screenshots or stock footage of dishes, referencing @PaymoneyWubby's early quip about "dirty dishes and a whole asshole" being the actual aesthetic of the slideshows4. Other posts hunt for the original slideshow or ask strangers in comments if anyone saved a link5.

Origin & Background

Platform
TikTok (slideshows) / Twitter (early documentation)
Date
2022

Catalyst: on December 22nd, 2022, TikTok users noticed photo slideshows carrying hentai and other adult images racking up views on For You Pages1. The same day, Twitter user @Ghosty6913 posted a screenshot of one of the slideshows with the caption, "TikTok needs to be deleted from existence. THIS WHOLE SLIDESHOW WAS JUST HENTAI???", which is the earliest widely cited documentation of the glitch2. It is not confirmed which specific sound or slideshow template kicked it off, and KYM notes that the Ghosty6913 screenshot may be one example rather than the original1.

Earliest meme reference: on December 23rd, 2022, Twitch streamer @PaymoneyWubby tweeted about "slideshow porn tiktok" and the "dirty dishes and a whole asshole" pattern, giving the week its first catchphrase4. The event itself was not a crafted meme format, so no single creator exists; the lore grew from users independently joking about something they had seen in their feeds.

Loading tweet...

How It Spread

By early January 2023, the incident already had a name on Reddit. On January 2nd, 2023, a user on /r/Tiktokhelp asked for a working link to the slideshow and wrote, "guys I can recover the December 22 2022 incident if someone copied the link of the slideshow," treating the week as recoverable lost media5. That framing stuck, and TikTokers kept posting throughout early 2023 claiming to have witnessed it or to still have copies saved6.

The lore video style took hold around February and March 2023. TikToker @slamuri posted an early popular retelling in February 20236, followed by posts from accounts such as @treylloyt7 and @flashflame10008 that mythologized the week as a one-time breakdown of moderation. On May 23rd, 2023, @noahglenncarter uploaded a video arguing that the moderation team was on Christmas break, which picked up over 59,000 views in under an hour and became one of the more cited explanations3.

Timeline

2022-12-22

TikTok users notice NSFW slideshows going viral; @Ghosty6913 posts the first widely circulated screenshot on Twitter.

2022-12-23

Twitch streamer @PaymoneyWubby tweets about "slideshow porn tiktok," giving the moment its early catchphrase.

2023-01-02

A Reddit post on /r/Tiktokhelp coins the name "December 22 2022 incident" while asking for a surviving link.

2023-02

TikToker @slamuri posts an early lore-style retelling of the incident.

2023-05-23

TikToker @noahglenncarter posts the "mods were on Christmas break" theory, drawing over 59,000 views in under an hour.

Frequently Asked Questions