TikTok Bans Milk Crate Challenge After Alarming Number Of Injuries
New internet challenges pop up all the time, but every couple of years one of them takes off in a big way.
Whether it’s planking, Tebowing, the ice bucket challenge or simply flipping a bottle, the commonality of trying to attain the same goal makes us feel connected.
Now, social media is in a frenzy with the milk crate challenge.
It started as a viral TikTok challenge and it has everyone attempting to climb a shaky pyramid of stacked milk crates.
Millions of people have attempted the feat and the vast majority of them have failed miserably.
According to Know Your Meme, the challenge is actually based on a video that went viral a decade ago.
In the clip posted by the YouTube channel JoyRidersTV Bonus Footy on June 23, 2011, a guy runs across a staircase made of milk crates before falling and injuring his back.
The clip inspired Facebook users Kenneth Waddell and Jordan Browne who were the first known people to redo the milk crate challenge in August of 2021.
Since then, the challenge has had millions of views across social platforms such as TikTok, Twitter and Facebook.
CNN reported that TikTok put a ban on the challenge by removing all search results for its corresponding hashtags and releasing a statement explaining the decision.
“TikTok prohibits content that promotes or glorifies dangerous acts and we remove videos and redirect searches to our Community Guidelines to discourage such content,” a spokesperson for the video-sharing app explained. “We encourage everyone to exercise caution in their behavior whether online or off.”
Doctors across the nation have also warned about the lifelong injuries that can come to those that participate in the crate challenge.
“Broken wrists, shoulder dislocations, ACL and meniscus tears, as well as life-threatening conditions like spinal cord injuries,” Dr. Shawn Anthony, an orthopedic surgeon at Mount Sinai in New York, told TODAY Parents.
The thought of possibly having a lifelong injury from doing a social media trend should be enough to stop people in their tracks. So why do people attempt these extreme challenges?
When people do these challenges, they garner a lot of attention and it provides them with a sense of acceptance or belonging.
I would never attempt the milk crate challenge.
After seeing people fall from eight feet in the air combined with my fear of heights, that is more than enough reason for me not to break a leg.
