It's possible you've seen this infographic on Facebook or Twitter in the last month or so. It says it's a recipe for homemade Bernie Sanders-themed glowsticks. It suggests combining a pool-chlorinating tablet with isopropyl alcohol.
But if you were to actually do that, it's likely the "glowstick" would explode almost immediately. There are numerous YouTube videos depicting what happens when you mix chlorine and alcohol.
It appears that the fake glowstick recipe first appeared in March on a 4chan-like messageboard called Ponychan. Ponychan describes itself as a community for older fans of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. The glowstick infographic was posted to the site's "trash" section.
The first user to post the image described it as a chlorine gas bomb. They wrote:
SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR BERNIE SANDERS! Don't actually do this its a chlorine gas bomb But feel free to get others to do it :^)
Shortly after that, it ended up on Imgur. It's unclear if the Imgur user who shared the image was aware it was a recipe for a bomb.
But commenters immediately recognized what it was.
The infographic was posted to Tumblr in March as well. The original Tumblr user, defense-of-the-gathering, tagged the image as "fucked up shit on Facebook." The post now has over 80,000 notes, many warning people to not make the recipe.
But it appears, two months later, that the image is still being shared. It was picked up again by a DeviantART user named Dj-Recon, who posted the image and warned people that it wasn't actually a recipe for glowsticks.
Dj-Recon wrote that it's essentially the recipe for a homemade bomb.
DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT MADE THOSE BERNIE SANDER'S GLOWSTICKS. ONE OF MY IRL FRIENDS SEND ME THIS AND SINCE KNOWING A LITTLE CHEMISTRY, THIS IS NOT HOW YOU MADE GLOWSTICKS.
INSTEAD YOU'RE MAKING A FUCKING HOMEMADE BOMB.
MIXING IN CHLORINE WITH ALCOHOL AND THEN SHAKING THEM HARD WILL CAUSE AN ACIDIC EXPLOSION.
THEY ALSO PRODUCED A POISONOUS GAS THAT CAN BE ABSORBED THROUGH THE SKIN CAUSING SEVERE NERVE DAMAGE TO YOUR BODY AND CAN EVEN RESULT IN DEATH.
Someone is legitimately trying to kill Bernie supporters. If you see someone tempting to make this glowstick recipe, tell them to stop and tell that that mixing chlorine with alcohol will produce a very toxic gas and DO NOT SHAKE THEM.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the image is dying down, with conservative blogs picking it up over the last week.
in the meantime, just let people know that they shouldn't be trying to make homemade glowsticks. As Mic Newspoints out, this is a video of what a three-liter bottle of chlorine and isopropyl alcohol can purportedly do.
