Internet Challenges - Should We Let Darwinism Take Its Course?

Hey My J's, Yes I'm calling you guys and gals and inbetweeners and prepubescents J's now. Since you are all my minions, beneath me I got J's on my feet. So Jessies, I've got something to discuss with you all.

@nathanmars #seven77 push up challenge has been all over the steem blockchain of late and seeing a challenge used in a practical and smart manner is admirable. I really think it could be a powerful marketing tool for the platform and we should all continue to come up with interesting ways to use it.

Internet challenges were meant to be viral but now they are viruses

But this is not what my post is about. My post is about internet challenges on traditional social media/ Every so often an internet phenomenon so bizarre or dangerous gets a hold of people.

Sometimes the threat is relatively real. The Drake In My Feelings Challenge, The Tide Pod Challenge, The Set myself alight challenge and the “Extreme selfie” challenges, which people put themselves in dangerous positions in order to get the perfect Instagram shot, are all prime examples of how challenges can be dangerous.

These challenges combined with the promise of internet fame and stupidity can even end up being deadly.

The death of Internet fame

Recently a new internet challenge has been making the rounds the apparently deadly prank causing unnecessary panic among parents and police alike, is the “Momo suicide” challenge.

The premise of the challenge, supposedly, is to bully young people into self-harming, or dying by suicide – a matter of legitimate concern, given the number of social media-related deaths among young people in recent years a viral challenge of this type can easily exacerbate this issue.

Once the Momo posers persuade their targets to add them as contacts, the challenge begins. When we look back on high profile deaths due to cyberbullying of young people like Molly Russell, and Sophie Parkinson and Daniel Long we can see that a challenge of this kind poses a real problem with a lack of regulation on the part of social media platforms.

When we give kids access to a tool meant for adults we effectively give them access to all sorts of stimulants their minds aren't ready for and without limitations and guidance it can quickly become dangerous and have long-lasting effects on your child's mental state.

Do we let these challenges happen?

Should we be making an active effort to have challenge content of this nature banned from social media to limit its reach? or do we let it run its course and take a few lives along with it each time a new one comes to town?

Origins of internet challenges

Though the actual origins of the Momo Challenge itself are unclear, it reportedly made its rounds in the Spanish-speaking world first, with Mexican authorities claiming that the trend stemmed from a Facebook group.

According to Snopes, the fact-checking website, Momo isn’t quite as new as we think. In fact, suggestions that it was indeed behind a number of suicides among teenagers surfaced in July 2018, after the Buenos Aires Times in Argentina claimed police had linked the challenge to a 12-year-old girl’s death.

According to Google trends, the Momo challenge didn’t really pick up steam in the English-speaking world until YouTuber ReignBot made a video devoted to unpacking the phenomenon in July 2018.

Which is why I feel like blockchains for content is so important, if this were to begin on a blockchain based medium it would be easy to find the entry point of the content and how it escalated as we have easy access to the public data and not have to grasp at breadcrumbs.

Have your say

What do you think of internet challenges?

Holla at me in the comments! All my commenters I will now refer to as Jessie. Jessie is a good friend of mine, but Jessies got a girl and I want to make her mine.

So have at it my Jessies! If you don't have something to comment, simply comment "I am a Jessie"

Let's connect

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Sources:

• nme
• rollingstone
• independent