By Sophie Tuan
As one scrolls aimlessly on Instagram or Tik Tok, the screen is bound to be littered with the most recent social media trends— whether it’s fast fashion, makeup, or the most exciting new activities. Most times these trends are playful, silly, and funny, but over the last couple years a few trends have veered in the opposite direction, proving to be extremely dangerous with, in severe cases, fatal consequences. One fatal trend in particular led to the traumatizing deaths of many young adolescents: the “blackout challenge”.
In 2021, the blackout challenge initially went viral on Tik Tok, quickly spreading to Instagram and other platforms; the point was to get as close to blacking out as possible in order to experience the adrenaline rush of regaining full consciousness. Participants brought themselves to the brink of passing out by depriving their brain of oxygen, self-asphyxiation, and borderline choking themselves. Since the majority of social media users who encounter the blackout trend on their For You pages are in their teens or younger, many do not comprehend the risks of self-asphyxiation, often leading to severe consequences. The risks taken by too many young children who were influenced by a social media trend have had unimaginable consequences–devastating families and taking lives.
The blackout challenge encourages self-asphyxiation, and, more often than not, the challenge results in hypoxia— low levels of oxygen in the brain. Only taking 4.4 pounds of pressure to cut off the brain’s supply of oxygen, it is quite easy to cause severe brain damage with a minimal amount of time and effort. In fact, the brain only requires 10 seconds without oxygen to fully lose consciousness, 4 minutes until permanent brain damage, and 5 minutes until fatality.
In an attempt at internet fame and a search for an adrenaline rush, many unsupervised children took part in the blackout challenge— recording themselves in perhaps their final moments as they utilized common household items to choke themselves. In most fatal situations, the victims of the blackout challenge were not even old enough to have a registered Tik Tok account (must be thirteen or older). In 2022 alone, it was found that the death of twenty children could be traced back to this singular social media trend. Of these children, fifteen had been twelve years old or younger. Not only did this trend result in many deaths but it also became a source of trauma and grief for those who had lost a loved one to the lethal dare. In some cases, younger siblings had watched as their older sibling participated in what seemed like a light-hearted trend, never to wake up again, or parents who walked in to find their young child unconscious and unresponsive. Those who were lucky enough to survive the challenge often suffered from permanent and severe brain damage due to the shortage of oxygen in their brains during the challenge.
It is crucial to eradicate the plethora of dangerous, self-harming trends that plague social media platforms. These trends weave their way through the algorithm, perpetuating themselves to young children too ignorant to fully grasp the dangers of such popular videos. The effect of trends such as the blackout challenge are fatal and damaging to not only young children but towards youth overall.