Internet Challenges Gone Too Far

Crazy challenges! Ever heard of them? The tide pod challenge, the Kylie Jenner lip challenge, or even the knife challenge and many more similar challenges are floating across the internet, but the question still remains, why do people do them?

Some challenges can leave people scarred forever. For example, the Kylie Lip challenge is a challenge where teenagers take a glass of some sort and create a vacuum to their lips to make them puffy.

PHS freshman Jessica Collins recalls, “When I did the challenge, I got lucky that the swelling went down after 10 minutes.” For some people, it worked, and for others it made their lips blow up and bruise so badly that they were sent to the E.R.

These days many teenagers participate in these crazy challenges for people’s attention and views on the internet. People take these games as a joke to share a good laugh with people but in reality, they know that these jokes can do a lot of serious damage.

PHS counselor Mr. Zarchin explains, “I don’t have any issue with the challenges and people posting videos online except for when a line is crossed, whether it be racial tension, poor choices, or harmful words towards others. I don’t necessarily feel that they shouldn’t be doing them instead of these challenges benefiting themselves maybe they could start doing these challenges to benefit others. Great example: Ice bucket challenge.”

People who do these challenges do not really think about their actions or the possible consequences.  They seem to be more motivated by the number of likes their post reaches.

PHS freshman Krish Vaidya says, “These challenges occur because people have curiosity.”  The challenge he participated in was the knife challenge, where he took a knife and stabbed the table around his fingers, trying to avoid them.

“The benefit of doing this is to see if the rumors you hear about the challenges are true,” states Vaidya. The rumor held in this challenge was that if you go fast enough you could mess up and damage your fingers.

Mateo Thomas, a freshman, also participated in the knife challenge. He says he did this challenge to gain popularity.

Thomas says, “I just wanted to be somebody and fit in.”

These challenges can waste a lot of time. Krish says that doing these challenges are a waste because the person can be doing more productive things. Doing these challenges are like an experiment meaning people never really know what is going to happen until they try.

Vaidya states, “The point of risking this is to show off in front of my friends.” Half of the people who do this just want to be cool or get the views.

Krish said that he can influence others into not doing this by showing the cuts on his fingers, which

Student doing the “No-Thumb” Challenge

could hopefully influence the decision of others to not do this challenge.

Freshman Gianna Rovito did the no thumbs challenge. The no thumbs challenge is where you tape your thumbs to your index finger and try to do things without your thumbs.

Rovito explains that “Doing these challenges is a total waste of time because who wants to sit there and try and do things without your thumbs.”

Overall these internet challenges are making both a positive and negative effect on society. There are lots of risks from most of these challenges. Scars, permanent body damage, broken bones, and even the possibility of death are possible outcomes. Although these challenges were all made for fun, people always find a way to take a more extreme level.