‘This is your reminder’: NYC woman leaned against a subway pole in a tank top. It didn’t end well when her doctor told her to cover up immediately

New York‘s subway system comes with a long list of unwritten rules. For newcomers, even figuring out what not to touch isn’t always obvious. One rule, according to TikTok creator Anna Manocha, matters most, and that is to never touch anything with bare skin.

Manocha said she learned that rule the hard way. Her video explains what happened after she broke it during her first year in the city. She said she moved to New York years ago. 

Her warning becomes especially relevant as the weather turns warm. “As it gets warmer outside in New York and you’re wearing, like, shorts and tank tops and stuff, this is your reminder to not touch the subway,” she said.

Her subway workaround wasn’t enough

She explained her workaround. Instead of gripping the pole with her hand, she leaned against it with her shoulder. Her elbow made contact with the pole instead. “I don’t want to grip the subway pole with my hand,” she said, explaining that she used her hands to touch other things during the day.

The workaround did not fully protect her. About a month later, she went to the dermatologist. “You have this mole on your shoulder,” the doctor reportedly told her. She initially brushed off the concern at first. “I don’t get moles checked. Like, I’m brown,” she recalled.

She said the doctor described the mark as “a viral infection that spreads across New York really fast, and it’s caused by, like, touching disgusting things in the subway.” The doctor then asked if she had touched the pole with bare skin. Manocha said she likely had, while leaning against it.

One reply under the video read, “I’ve lived here almost my whole life and never heard of this.” She later added more detail in the comments, saying that she checked her own dermatology records for the exact name. “not me looking back in my derm records to see what it’s called — molluscum contagiosum,” she wrote. The diagnosis has not been independently confirmed, and Manocha has not shared medical records publicly.

The subway has provided plenty of strange experiences for New Yorkers and newcomers alike. Another rider recently found herself dealing with an unusually empty subway car, turning a routine ride into a very different kind of subway story.

But Manocha said the story did not end there. She later met a friend who had a similar mark on his arm. She said she immediately put on a mask and stepped back. The friend told her the mark had been there a while. “I’m going every other day to get them frozen off,” she recalled him saying.

Replies under the video ranged from disbelief to recognition. “I ended up getting a damn wart on my finger 6 months after moving to nyc…” one comment read. Another commenter described a recent ride. “Yeah I did my best to not hold or touch anything in the subway today and I lost balance and fell backwards,” they wrote.

Manocha has not offered further medical documentation. The condition’s exact cause remains unconfirmed. Her advice for other riders is to cover exposed skin before grabbing a pole in the subway.