Oh the humanity. If the cognitive dissonance surrounding our previous president and how our nation has been handling the Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t enough evidence of the average level of intelligence, there’s a new indicator, “The Milk Crate Challenge.”
Internet “challenges” have been an online staple for the past several years including Tebowing, the Ice Bucket Challenge, Gangnam Style Challenge, Harlem Shake Challenge, Gallon Smashing Challenge, Charlie Charlie Challenge, and the Mannequin Challenge, just to name a few.
Throughout the pandemic lockdown TikTok encouraged tons of dance challenges and unfortunately several dangerous “challenges” that began claiming the lives of youngsters.
The latest viral challenge on TikTok, brave souls(?) are attempting to ascend a precariously rickety pyramid of stacked milk crates and make it down the other side in an attempt to one-up each other. Millions are trying the feat, the vast majority are failing miserably, and that’s why it’s so ridiculously perfect.
The challenge is based on a video that went viral a decade ago. In the clip posted by the YouTube channel JoyRidersTV Bonus Footy on June 23rd, 2011, a dude runs across a staircase made of milk crates before falling and injuring his back.
According to HITC, the clip appears to have inspired Facebook users Kenneth Waddell and Jordan Browne who were the first known people to do the challenge in August 2021.
They posted a video of people playing the crate game in a public park on Facebook which went viral and was then copied by thousands of people around the world.
Okay, then.
The beauty is in the myriad ways this challenge can go wrong. Every video is like unwrapping a delectable treat from an unmarked box. You know you’re going to get something delicious, you just don’t know how exactly it will taste. There are people who fail on the first couple of steps, plummeting off the side.
Others who make it to the pinnacle before falling into the crates, made of polythene, on their descent, and there’s this guy, bless his heart, who tried with all his might to cling to hope at the apex, only to have his world come crashing down.
One dude, “White Mike” completed the challenge while rolling a blunt:
Here are a few more highlights for your viewing pleasure:
Everyone who attempts this challenge KNOWS it’s a terrible idea. These are willing Darwin Awards participants, without the same stakes of the actual natural selection that’s taking place right now.
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She actually won the challenge. In heels:
The sheer stupidity is not limited to the men, tho:
These brave souls who attempt the Milk Crate Challenge looked at 2021 and saw millions of people willing to throw their lives away because a discredited doctor on Facebook told them the Covid vaccine contained tracking chips, alters your DNA, and is killing people by the thousands, and said “Ya know, I’d like to do something really dumb too. Hold my beer” They fashioned their janky towers of heavily used plastic with the care of Icarus sticking bird feathers together with wax.
This is the kind of hilarity we didn’t know we needed. We yearned for a distraction or way to laugh at the misfortune of others that didn’t involve Covid. Sure, it won’t last forever and like all challenges, it will soon fade away into obscurity, but for now we will love these glorious idiots for destroying their spines in the hopes of achieving glory.
Try not to break anything during your quest for your 15 minutes of fame, the hospitals are currently overcrowded as our real heroes are still fighting the good fight on the front lines.
Oh the humanity.
Joia DaVida reports on the entertainment industry in both Chicago and Los Angeles.
