Our Obsession with Internet Challenges

  

Harming Yourself for Clout      

In this day and age, we are all too familiar with trending and what exactly it entails to be trending on social media. We have created a culture of “virality” and brining mass attention to things on our social media that are trending and popular among people online. With the rise of trends, we have seen the creation of viral internet challenges, you know, the ones where people willingly film themselves making poor decisions that ultimately result in consequences, with most of those being related to physical injury. It is hilarious to me that we continually get hurt by doing something stupid we saw other people doing online for attention, and yet we are still constantly hurting ourselves because we don’t learn from our choices and instead find enjoyment and entertainment out of those who harm themselves in the name of internet fame.  

Okay I’m here to refresh your mind on some viral internet challenges from the last couple of years:

·       Bird Box Challenge

·       Charlie Charlie Challenge

·       Cinnamon Challenge

·       In My Feels (Drake) Challenge

·       Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge

·       Salt and Ice Challenge

·       Tide Pod Challenge

And all of these challenges involved people harming themselves in some way, shape, and form.

            We see viral internet challenges all of the time now, we know probably every couple of months or so there is going to be a challenge we won’t be able to resist partaking in. We want so desperately to fit in with what everyone else is doing, we will literally record us causing physical harm to ourselves and then proceed to upload the video for everyone else to see. Americans are truly something else I will tell you.

Celebrity Challenge Endorsement      

  

These challenges especially take off when celebrities participate in them. One celebrity that I remember taking part in these challenges in the early 2010’s very often was Glozell. She is a YouTuber that was infamous for embarrassing and harming herself all in the name of entertainment. A few challenges she took part in include the Cinnamon Challenge, Salt and Ice Challenge, Hot Pepper Challenge, Warhead Challenge, and many more. I am including a link to her Cinnamon Challenge here because of how hilariously horrible that video is (which has over 56 million views to date). Glozell isn’t as popular now as she used to be nearly a decade ago, but there is still no shortage of celebrities participating in viral internet challenges. For example, there is Liza Koshy recording herself dancing outside a moving car for the In My Feelings Challenge, or Jake Paul who drove his car with a blindfold on in the middle of LA for the Bird Box Challenge. There are influencers who so desperately want to stay relevant with their audience that they try out the next viral challenge for views, even if it includes harmful practices because, hey?

Challenges for Change             

Not all challenges are necessarily bad, think back to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and the impact that had on the ALS community. We saw that the challenge raised $115 million in the summer of 2014 when it was most popular and trending, which is an incredible feat. This amount of money allowed the ALS Association to gain significant progress in research and treatments as well as spreading awareness of the issue on a national level. This proves challenges can be used for good and create significant change because of how people flock to trending topics online. Literally all of this progress in the ALS community was the result of people videoing themselves pouring freezing cold water over themselves and posting for others to watch. It was something so trivial but also something that created such a significant impact on our society and those who are directly involved with the tragedy that is ALS.

Although most internet challenges have no point to them and usually feature people who are bored of their boring everyday lives and use these trending challenges to do something worth excitement, it shows that they’re not all absolutely pointless. If these challenges mean that we can literally save the lives of those who are battling tough diseases, then I say they’re all worth it and keep the entertainment coming. The fact that the people of the internet were able to come together and create this much good in the world really increased by faith in humanity tremendously.

Challenge Accepted

What is the insane part about all of these challenges is that people have literally harmed themselves enough to end up in the hospital, and in rare cases people have actually died taking part in these trends. Apparently it is worth your actual life just to gain the attention of others. If you pass away trying these challenges, it's not going to matter how much attention of others you capture, for obvious reasons. I think if you're causing that much harm to yourself or others trying to take part, then you're probably missing the point. These are made for light-hearted fun and entertainment, not for intentionally ruining your life as you know it. It is fascinating to see how far people will push themselves so that they may be relevant for a week or so with a challenge video that goes viral. 

I think that we are all just insane and find pleasure in watching other people harm themselves for views and the entertainment of others. This is the world we have come to, where we have to create a trending way for us to hurt ourselves in order to stay relevant and grab the attention of others. There’s other ways to get people to pay attention to you, but to each there own. I actually quite appreciate the idea of viral internet challenges because you really see Charles Darwin’s idea of natural selection really come to play. All I have to say is, "survival of the fittest" to those who choose to partake in these viral challenges.