The Viral TikTok Ear Camera Shouldn't Clean Your Ears (But We Did Find a Less-Icky Use For It). (2024)

Ears are self-cleaning, and earwax should not be removed by someone without medical training.

“It’s a very sensitive area,” Dr. Ashley Kita, otolaryngologist at UCLA Health, who has seen several patients with injuries from these viral cameras, said in a phone interview. “It’s the little spatulas on the end that’s the problem. It’s a small area, and it’s hard to have the same level of mindfulness [that a trained professional would have]. You can be jumpy if you touch something, and that’s often when injuries occur.”

But what about cotton swabs, you say? These little fluff-on-sticks were invented in the 1920s, primarily for use on babies. Using them as adult ear cleaners became and remained popular ever since. However, boxes now have warning labels that say something like: “Do not insert swab into ear canal. Entering the ear canal could cause injury.”

In August 2022, TikTok creator Kacie Rose chronicled her Q-tip-related eardrum rupture (video) while she was on a trip to Hungary, which she later said caused her to have to take a train back to her home in Italy, since her doctor hadn’t cleared her to fly.

That caveat extends beyond cotton swabs to all sorts of potential ear-digging implements, like paper clips, brushes, and even camera-tipped picks, as our colleagues at The New York Timesreported in February 2024.

Hear that, TikTok! Camera-tipped picks are not recommended for cleaning your ears.

Cleaning your ears with a variety of objects can be a part of some cultures—and if it’s something that you’re doing with a full understanding of the risks, then obviously I can’t stop you. But what if I told you there was an even better use for your tiny pokey camera to safely explore important crevices?

Every four months or so, Lego releases a series of Minifigures (little Lego characters), along with licensed Minifigs like The Muppets or characters from Marvel. But you can’t just buy whichever latest Minifig you want. Of course not! Minifig releases are like mystery boxes, with packages that all look the same and no major indication of which character lies inside. When I was trying to complete my Muppets Minifig collection, I spent an extra $35 hoping to pull the ones I still needed, and ended up with multiple Miss Piggys.

Of course, Adult Fans of Lego (AFOLs) have always found a workaround for this problem. They used to try to feel through the poly bags for distinct characteristics or accessories (like a cowboy hat or a surfboard) to try and ID which Minifig was inside. I was never great at it, but I taught the Wirecutter staff how to do it at an all-company meeting, and our head AFOL, senior staff writer Joshua Lyon, of course won the competition—and the Minifigs—by guessing all of the bagged figures correctly.

But in the fall of 2023, Lego did AFOLs dirty and switched from poly bags to cardboard boxes, as part of its sustainability goals. The aftermath is that AFOLs everywhere can no longer use the feely-bag method.

AFOLs, of course, are industrious types, and they discovered all sorts of workarounds to the box problem, from deciphering codes on the box (video) to weighing the boxes (video) with ultra-sensitive digital scales to determine the fractions of a difference.

Unfortunately, we’ve also seen people rip open the boxes and leave the scattered remains of their unwanted Minifig on the shelves.

A far better and less destructive solution is using the viral ear canal camera to hunt for Minifigs. I got this idea via Martin Burton, a UK-based, Lego-themed creator who goes by @_let_them_fly_ on Instagram and has many cool Lego builds, including One Direction’s appearance on The X Factor and a large-scale model of the Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo.

“Using it to peek into a Lego box was to demonstrate the exaggerated lengths some (mainly resellers) go to cheat the system,” Burton told me when I slid into his DMs.

We know that you would never do anything as dubious as standing in a store using a camera-tipped pick to determine which Lego was in a box before you bought it, but what if you bought a bunch of Minifigs you wanted to give as gifts, and you need to know what’s in the box before wrapping it up? A common issue.

Here’s the process: Bend the box slightly and slip the thin-tipped ear-canal camera into the tiny slot you’ve opened up. If you’re careful, this technique doesn’t damage the box at all.

Take a look around until you can see something distinctive in color, size or shape. Cross-reference that piece with the image online or the box insert (if you’ve already opened a box from that series) to determine which figure it is.

I bought the cheapest Wi-Fi–enabled ear canal camera I could find to try out this trick, and it really works! I linked the camera to an app on my phone via Wi-Fi, stuck the probe end of the camera into the slightly separated box slats, and watched the video on my phone screen.

Using this method, I successfully identified a box of six assorted Series 25 Minifigs as Fitness Instructor, Fierce Barbarian, Mushroom Sprite, Harpy, Goatherd, and Train Kid. Josh needed Mushroom Sprite for his collection, and I was able to give him the sealed box, allowing him the joy and satisfaction of ripping it open and assembling the character himself.

Kita actually thinks there’s a future for these cameras to help with telemedicine to see what’s going on in the ear. “If we can gently look into the ear remotely, in tandem with your provider, that could be good,” she said.

For now, you can use this tiny camera to poke around non-bodily nooks, like spelunking for lost change in your couch cushion or peeking under the stove for the fridge magnet that took a dive.

Burton told me that he got the idea because he owned the camera for its, ahem, intended use but then realized it could be used for so many more things.

“I had a leak in my garage roof and poked the camera up a little hole to the void to see where the water was getting in,” Burton said. “I also used it to see an inaccessible area in my car engine.”

So fun, so handy—but so not for cleaning your ears.

People of the internet, I beg of you: Please, please, please don’t rely on nonaccredited social media influencers for your medical advice. But Lego advice is completely acceptable.

This article was edited by Alex Aciman and Catherine Kast.