What’s the ‘milk crate challenge’? Viral trend could cause serious injury, experts warn
The “milk crate challenge” is one of social media’s latest trends, but experts warn the viral stunt could lead to serious injuries.
The challenge has exploded across TikTok, Twitter and other social media sites in the last week, and involves people attempting to climb plastic milk crates stacked like a staircase.
The feat seems easy at first, but the wobbly pyramid usually gives way once the participant reaches the top — or tries to hustle back down before the crates come tumbling down, according to videos posted online. The result is people losing their balance and falling from atop the stacked crates before slamming into the ground below, oftentimes in awkward, contorted positions.
A video posted to Twitter shows one man falling chest-first onto a plastic crate, and another man landing on his back.
As of Tuesday, #cratechallenge videos on TikTok had more than 83.8 million views.
“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 TikTok spokesperson told McClatchy News in a statement. “We encourage everyone to exercise caution in their behavior whether online or off.”
‘Potentially life threatening’ injuries
Experts warn the viral stunt comes with risks.
Dr. Andrew Doyle, a pediatrician with Wellstar Health System in Georgia who has followed similar social media challenges, said the risk of injuries range from minor to “potentially life threatening.”
“There’s a lot of bad ideas out there on the internet and this is one of them,” Doyle told McClatchy News in an interview. “Besides getting banged up, you can easily break a limb if you fall wrong, especially from those kinds of heights that I’ve seen in the videos.”
Those who dare to try the milk crate challenge “could be risking serious injury or death,” Doyle said.
Similar challenges — including the infamous Tide Pod challenge and the “blackout challenge” — have cropped up on social media over the years and were especially popular among children and teens. They’re just two examples of potentially risky fads that go viral among those seeking internet fame.
The so-called “Benadryl challenge,” which involved downing excessive amounts of the allergy medication to get high, sent at least three Texas teens to the hospital last year and was linked to the death of a 15-year-old girl in Oklahoma, KFOR reported. A less risky, but equally cringe-worthy trend had TikTok users rubbing Mr. Clean Magic erasers on their teeth to try and whiten them, McClatchy News reported.
In the case of the milk crate challenge, thrill-seekers usually attempt it in front of a large crowd or audience, online videos show. Doyle noted that adolescents “sometimes have an invulnerabilty that they think they can get away with things that don’t seem that dangerous to them.”
Positive reinforcements such as thousands of views and social media “likes” can be the motivation for such risky behavior, he said, even among adults.
The milk crate challenge seems more suited for the pre-TikTok “Jackass” movies, and with the surge of COVID-19 cases jamming up hospitals and urgent care facilities across the U.S., Doyle wonders why anyone would attempt such a dangerous stunt.
“If you have a life-threatening injury, emergency rooms aren’t going to turn you away,” Doyle told McClatchy News, “but the resources are really tight right now as hospitals across the nation have experienced a significant increase in patients.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 6:00 PM with the headline "What’s the ‘milk crate challenge’? Viral trend could cause serious injury, experts warn."