A new and dangerous trend is emerging online called neknominating. Neknominating is a drinking challenge, appearing in shared video clips on Facebook and YouTube.
Many of these neknomination videos, which social media outlets have tried to pull down, can each yield thousands of views. Many seem to originate from areas of Europe and Australia, but the drinking trend is starting to permeate elsewhere.
In them, participants – typically young males – are seen chugging down or “necking” alcoholic drinks like beer in varying extreme ways, and then challenging others to mimic their audacious, risky behavior. Friends are neknominated to out-drink one another and urged to push the boundaries in this drinking game.
These drinking antics have escalated into players imbibing copious amounts of hard liquor – which have a significantly higher alcohol content percentage – from vessels like toilet bowls, swilling away while poised upside down, reports CBC News. In one, a young man is seen polishing off an entire 750mL bottle of vodka. Others are recorded gulping down beers while driving or getting struck with wooden boards, light bulbs, and fireworks. Better yet – set on fire.
Regardless of the risks, neknominating continues to grow in popularly, as groups are starting to appear on Facebook, and videos continue to spring up on YouTube.
People seem to overlook that the tomfoolery associated with these drunken challenges can result in injuries, and binge-drinking alone is extremely dangerous. Aside from slips, spills, and falls, drinkers can succumb quickly to the disorienting effects of the alcohol and black out.
Fatalities have also been linked to the drinking game, as neknominating has resulted in the deaths of at least two people in Ireland, according to the Belfast Telegraph and several other reports in the region.
My best advice, just because you see others doing something dangerous and stupid on social media sites, like neknominating, doesn’t mean you have to acquiesce to peer pressure and put yourself into harms way.
[Image: Mr. Wright]
