The other day I was looking at my baby, and I had a little thought: Should I toss a slice of cheese on him? I had watched some videos on my phone of what appeared to be Kraft Singles smacking the faces of crying infants, rendering them stunned and bewildered. The videos had been spliced into a mash-up and served to me on Instagram as a looping carousel of orange squares thwacking babies silly. My baby was not crying, but that would give me time to prepare: Open the fridge, unwrap the slice, position the camera and take aim.

The phenomenon of the “cheese slice trick” (or the “baby cheese challenge”) is mildly rude, but it isn’t new. I first saw the videos circulating several years ago. I sensed that they had returned to my feed because I had viewed a different social media trend involving kids, a pantry staple and the element of surprise: the “egg crack challenge,” a recent viral prank in which parents film selfie videos of themselves cooking with their young children, only to — surprise! — forcefully crack eggs on their heads and capture the emotional fallout.

The trend began with people egging the foreheads of unsuspecting adults. Then they started targeting littler heads and producing bigger reactions. Many of the children cried, and for some reason, that made the parents laugh. The footage was unsettling, which only helped to extend its reach. Internet child care experts joined the food fight with their own videos expressing disapproval. When the cheese clips resurfaced, it felt like the algorithm was mounting a rebuttal. Like: See? It’s totally fine to hit your kids with food and post it online! The cheese actually makes them stop crying.

Egg or cheese, baby or toddler, tears or silence — humiliation thrums through all of these scenes. Why would parents want to publicly debase their own children? Social media clout is one explanation, but I don’t think it’s the only one. Watching an egg-cracking compilation on TikTok, I noticed something: As a mother films herself with her young daughter, the mother’s eyes rove restlessly between the child (whom she has just egged) and the phone (which is mirroring the scene back to her). She tries to offer assurances — “it’s OK, you’re OK” — even as she is drawn back to the screen, cackling at the spectacle of her child turning pink with anger.