HBO’s The Last of Us was supposed to be a cautionary tale, as well as a fictional one. But mushroom TikToker @southernspore is freaking a lot of people out with his latest video.
“This is Cordyceps, the zombie fungus, and I grew it off my own blood and skin,” he says in the video, which has more than 484,000 views.
He offers a close-up view of the specimen, and it certainly looks eerily like some of the images from The Last of Us.
He puts some of his skin sample under a microscope, which is indeed “absolutely disgusting.”
He claims that the Cordyceps are now growing on the skin sample. Then, he eats one of the Cordyceps. (They are edible if grown in the right conditions.)
Predictably, the comments are filled with people raising red flags about this experiment:
“Bro trynna speedrun the last of us,” one person said.
Others chimed in: “If you look closely you can see how it looks like you really weren’t supposed to do that,” another chimed in. One person said the TikToker will be “patient zero.”
“This is NOT the year,” a commenter warned.
@southernspore Cordyceps growing off human blood and skin #cordyceps #lastofus #mushroomgrowing #educational ♬ original sound – Southernspore
There are also plenty of stitches asking: Why?
“I feel like you missed the show,” said @msloan98.
@msloan98 #stitch with @Southernspore #lastofus #science #historymemes #history #funny #tbt ♬ original sound – msloan98
@criticalgracetheory_ #stitch with @Southernspore #comedian #blacktiktokcommunity #blacktiktok #blackgirlmagic #blackgirltiktok #mycology #mushrooms #thelastofus #charmed #witchtok #witchtokrising #witchy #witchyvibes ♬ original sound – CriticalGraceTheory
Cultivating your own Cordyceps is possible and has only really become popular in the last few years, as the means to do so have become more available. And there are health benefits to consuming Cordyceps mushrooms. But combining them with your own skin and blood feels like it’s taunting… something.
The Daily Dot reached out to Southernspore for comment via TikTok DM.
