17 Diapers

Submission 166

About

17 Diapers, also known as the Dirty Diapers Trend, refers to a TikTok trend inspired by TikToker Nurse Hannah (@nursehannahbh) in October 2024. In the original video, Nurse Hannah checked how many dirty diapers were in her home and found 17 of them. She portrayed the 17 diapers as a symbol of motherhood struggles. After the video went viral, many criticized Nurse Hannah for not immediately throwing out the diapers while other moms on TikTok decided to count the number of dirty diapers in their homes to show solidarity with Nurse Hannah. Discourse and memes about the 17 Diapers surfaced en masse in the following weeks. For instance, many mothers shared posts using the catchphrase My 17 Diapers, which labeled symbols of struggle in their motherhood experiences.

Origin

On October 5th, 2024, TikToker^[1] Nurse Hannah (@nursehannahbh) shared a video that had text overlay reading, "How many dirty diapers do I have lying around my house??" By the video's end, Nurse Hannah had counted 17 dirty diapers scattered throughout her house. Over nine days, the video received roughly 5.6 million plays and 177,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

In the original video's comment section, other TikTokers shared jokes about Nurse Hannah's 17 diapers in early October 2024. One top comment read, "This is absolutely not relatable," while another read, "I miss people having secrets" (shown below).

In the following weeks, other moms on TikTok shared videos in which they counted the diapers in their own homes, like TikToker^[2] @momthatistrying on October 10th, receiving over 2.5 million plays and 113,500 likes in four days (shown below).

On October 11th, 2024, TikToker^[3] @reyahthelastdragon posted a video criticizing Nurse Hannah. She started the video by joking, "You can't just be eating at anybody's house." Over three days, the video received roughly 1.4 million plays and 74,700 likes (shown below).

Other women defended Nurse Hannah in their video content as the viral video continued spreading. For instance, on October 13th, TikToker^[4] @talai.kay posted a video, stating that Nurse Hannah was three weeks postpartum, further writing, "1 out of 19 moms don't make it past the postpartum stage and you think your rude comment is helping her?" The video gained over 1.6 million plays and 120,900 likes in a day (shown below).

Other moms on TikTok then started sharing videos about "My 17 diapers," which labeled a difficult moment during their motherhood. The phrase is similar to "My Roman Empire."

For example, on October 13th, 2024, TikToker^[5] @ispywithmylittlee14 shared a video about her 17 diapers, gaining over 1.3 million plays and 193,400 likes in a day (shown below).