Ice Buckets, Fire, and Cinnamon: Why Social Media Challenges are Taking the Internet by Storm

I was interviewed recently for a breakfast show on Japanese TV.

The interviewer was keen to explore the link between the phenomenal success of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014 and the growth of recent social media challenges, such as the fire challenge, the cinnamon challenge (pictured above), and the Kylie Jenner challenge. While the former created widespread awareness for a little-known disease, challenges like the latter have caused injury, disfigurement, and even death!

What prompted the interview was the recent story of an 8-year old North Carolina boy, Rondarius Barnhardt, who sustained serious burns to his hands and face after filming himself participating in one of the latest YouTube crazes, the fire challenge.

But what are these challenges and why are they spreading?

Igniting the Fire Challenge

The fire challenge that Rondarius was participating in is believed to have started in 2012, when a video was posted of a young guy setting his chest hair alight using lighter fluid, which he then extinguished and ended with him issuing a challenge for others to follow suit. While it is highly probable that an off-line variation of the challenge existed long before this video - young men lighting farts is nothing new - the Internet certainly served as a medium to create a fresh audience and to disseminate it wider.

A Spoonful of Cinnamon

Similarly, the cinnamon challenge is a particularly dangerous activity that requires the participant to eat a spoonful of ground cinnamon in 60 seconds and without taking a drink. Because of the nature of the substance - tree bark made from cellulose - the cinnamon coats the mouth and throat and prompts the gag reflex, which then causes violent coughing and sneezing from the unfortunate individual. The body has difficulty metabolizing cinnamon, making it inedible in large quantities. US poison centers nationwide have reported a significant rise in calls relating to cinnamon misuse as a direct result of the viral spread of this challenge.

The Kylie Jenner Pout

And then there's the Kylie Jenner challenge. Named after the reality TV star, model, and half-sister to the Kardashians, this challenge requires the person to take a shot glass, insert their lips, and then suck in order to cause the lips to swell. Creating a pout equivalent to that of Kylie Jenner. Danger results from pain, swelling, and bruising, not to mention the fact that inflexible glass can break causing severe cuts and lacerations.

Other recent risky challenges have included: the condom challenge, the salt and ice challenge, and the Blue Whale challenge, but there are many more! There are also more innocuous challenges that provide less of a risk to life and limb, which means you are less likely to require a visit to your local ER.

Mannequins and Planking: Less Ricky Challenges

The mannequin challenge, for example, started in 2016 and saw groups of people standing stock still, usually accompanied by a suitable soundtrack and then uploaded to Facebook or Instagram utilizing the hashtag #mannequinchallenge. The planking challenge was also a more innocuous challenge, where participants straitening their body like a plank of wood and in increasingly adventurous places. But even this challenge saw the death of 20-year old Brisbane man, Acton Beale, who fell to his death from a 7-story window.

A Textbook Case - the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

But the classic social media challenge of recent times has to be the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which went viral in 2014 and prompted both celebrities and individuals worldwide to pour a bucket of ice-cold water over their heads in the name of charity. The campaign was a phenomenal success and raised awareness for the then little-known Lou Gehrig's disease and also generated significant donations to the ALS and other charities. The ALS Ice Bucket challenge has become a textbook example of a successful viral marketing campaign of all time.

Did the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Influence Current Behavior?

To suggest, however, that the ALS Ice Bucket challenge was the cause of the social media challenge phenomena misses the point about online viral activity and the mechanism of social contagion. It also misses the point that the Ice Bucket challenge encouraged celebrities, but it also included an older demographic and it was not exclusively a teen phenomena. Recent challenges are more skewed, such as the cinnamon and fire challenges, and appeal more to a younger demographic and particularly the teenage audience. Nevertheless, the Ice Bucket challenge benefited from the same dynamics that make the other challenges, like fire and cinnamon, go viral, but it cannot be blamed for causing it. Rather we need to look at a range of contributing factors.

1. Low Barriers to Participation - In 2016 it was estimated that there were 2.1 billion smartphone users worldwide and that this number is predicted to pass the 5 billion mark in 2020. Pew Research reports that nearly nine-in-ten Americans are online and that roughly three-quarters (77%) own a smartphone. This means that it has never been easier to create video content and instantly share it online. Go back as little as five years and the barriers to participation were greater, but now any kid with a smartphone and an internet connection can produce a 3-minute video and upload to YouTube within seconds.
2. The Content Explosion - There has been an explosion in online content, but particularly video content, with YouTube reporting that over 300 hours of video are uploaded to its site every minute and that almost 5 billion videos are watched every single day! The thousands of hours of new content being created each and every day create both a demand for more content and a need to satisfy a receptive audience who increasingly have the means to consume this content on the move and be their own movie star too. What is more, dumb ideas have never been more accessible to such a wide audience and so easily spread to willing participants.
3. Peer Acceptance - Participation in many of the risky challenges seems to be mainly concentrated among young teens and this suggests a willingness to gain acceptance in the eyes of their peers. Posting a video helps you to participate in this social media world and there is a significant element of oneupmanship - teens like to outdo each other! Teens like to show that they have gone further than their friends, not just in their immediate circle, but also unknown peers and contacts in the wider world.
4. Teens Seek Risky Behavior - whether it is unprotected sex, or experimentation with drugs, some teens have a propensity to seek out risky behavior, partly as a right of passage and partly, it is suggested, as a result of neurological changes occurring within the teenage brain. How many times has an errant teen caught doing something stupid been scolded by a parent with the words, "if someone asked you to jump of a bridge, would you do it?" Sadly, the answer these days is more likely to be, if it gets likes and shares on Instagram, 'yes'! Statistics for deaths from injury are six times higher for the 16 to 19-year age group, than they are for the 10 to 15 group. Interesting, this coincides with a stage in the young person's life when important neurological changes are taking place in the brain. Research on animals has shown that neurochemical changes are taking place that make some teens more susceptible to thrill-seeking. It is at this time that the pre-frontal cortex - the part that limits impulses and controls rational thinking - is still developing. MRI scans show that this is still developing into their 20s and so these changes may influence a greater willingness to embrace these many challenges and the risky behavior that results from them.
5. Instant Stardom and the Dopamine Hit - In recent years YouTube has made stars of many young people doing seemingly ordinary things and this coupled with the influence of a celebrity culture and numerous talent shows, gives people a sense that stardom beckons anyone and that achieving it is just as much a matter of luck, than talent. Teens follow their YouTube idols like, Logan Paul, PewDiePie, and Lilly Singh, and see the creation of videos that gain views a way to achieve what they see from those high profile creators. While those celebrity YouTubers are not necessarily engaging in these challenges, more impressionable teens might see this as a way to achieve their dreams and emulate their stars. Coupled with this is the dopamine hit that has been analyzed in the brain when a video receives page views, likes, and shares. That dopamine, which feeds the pleasure centers of the brain, can feel like a reward, and, like the behavior of the addict, thrill seekers may need higher and higher levels of that dopamine to achieve the same result, which leads to greater risk taking in terms of the type of challenges they participate it.

Is Marketing to Blame for These Challenges?

I don't think that you can blame marketers, or the influence of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, for the spread of these other challenges. Some teens have always done silly and dangerous things and the Internet has merely acted as a conduit to publicize them further and bring attention to risky behavior to a bigger audience. Viral activities like the Ice Bucket challenge merely leveraged the existing mechanism for social contagion that also helps propel the riskier challenges.

There is responsibility that lies with the social media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. YouTube took more than a week to condemn the recent 'Suicide Forest' video of Logan Paul. Paul has over 15 million subscribers to his YouTube channel and his video of a partially blurred body hanging from a tree, and the reaction of his colleagues, shocked many.  The video was taken down eventually, but not after a major backlash from viewers, but surprisingly less so from among his main fan-base.

In a world where there is a content explosion and creators are competing for views on crowded social media timelines that allow only a fleeting window to gain views and acceptance, there is a temptation to go for the shock value to attract those views. For many people, the world just becomes a a big playground from where content can be sourced. Remember the girl who stood by the wreckage of a crashed aircraft and posted a selfie with the line, 'so my plane just crashed!' Disaster junkies just see misfortune as another possible route to peer attention and potential fame.

There is also a sense that people are becoming desensitized by shocking content - there is simply so much of it - and so creators of content need to up the ante to gain attention. Some of the more risky challenges are a way to achieve that.

Many parents are oblivious to the online lives of their children. Paying closer attention to what they are doing, what they are sharing, and changes in behavior, is difficult, but important. In years gone by, a child could be grounded to remove the possibility of unwanted influences, now we have the 'digital grounding'. A greater willingness to take an interest in a teen's online life and resolve to take away a smartphone, may help.

There is little sign, however, that these challenges will reduce. They are a symptom of behaviors that predate the Internet, and while parents and social media platforms have a role, marketing needs to show that it is a responsible creator of content, but its influence cannot be held accountable for the riskier challenges that are currently taking the Internet by storm. But it can help steer young people away from activities that may cause harm or worse.

And maybe fewer young people like Rondarius Barnhardt will need to be injured in the future. Let us hope so.

Will Trevor is Faculty Program Director for Marketing at Excelsior College.

Disclaimer:

Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not represent the views or opinions of my employer.