What is the ‘how did Dora die’ trend on TikTok? Reaction videos explained

TikTok users are going viral for sharing their reactions to googling the question ‘how did Dora die?’ and garnering hundreds of thousands of views.

TikTok can often be a bizarre place, and many of the trends that have gone viral on the app have blown up simply thanks to how weird they are.

One such example, that first appeared on the app in 2022, and has returned to baffle users again in 2024, is the ‘how did Dora die’ trend.

Dora, in this case, refers to cartoon character Dora the Explorer, who stars in a show of the same name that features the character going on adventures with a monkey called Boots. The character has become an iconic part of several memes online.

This dark trend involving Dora instructs people to google search how the character supposedly died, filming their face both before and after finding out the information.

Some users that have participated in the trend have garnered thousands of views and likes for their shocked reactions.

Did Dora actually die?

No — you will be relieved to hear that Dora is not actually canonically dead.

Searching her cause of death may bring up results like falling into quicksand or a river, falling into a gorge, getting eaten by a crocodile, and getting “disintegrated by a lightning bolt,” among many others.

However, these all appear to have originated from a fanmade music video called ‘Dora No More’ posted by the YouTube channel TheStringiniBros in 2012.

The video, which has over 14 million views, shows the variety of different ways Dora could have died on her adventuring, with the caption reading: “Exploring can be dangerous kids.”

Despite not being real, these fake causes of Dora’s death have been proving to be great source material for reaction videos on TikTok.