4 popular internet trends that turned deadly - and what made it all go wrong

• Taking part in viral challenges online has become commonplace in the 21st century.
• Clips shared to social media of doing a dance, dunking yourself with ice or making mini horror films inspired by a milkshake have all become popular.
• But while most of the challenges and trends are harmless - occasionally they take a darker turn.

The internet has changed our lives in many ways - both big and small. But perhaps none more significant in how easy it is to share clips of ourselves around online.

Before mobile phones became widespread, you would need a VCR or a digital camera to film a “home video”. It would require actually remembering to have it set up, putting in an empty video tape (who remembers those!) and of course remembering to actually hit record.

Fast forward a couple of decades and it couldn’t be easier to quickly whip out your phone and record something. Look around you the next time you are at a concert and it will be a sea of phones in all directions.

And if you wanted to see a video recorded by someone else, they’d either have to bring it round to show you - or you’d switch on ITV’s You’ve Been Framed and get a mighty surprise. But in the 2020s, if you open your Facebook or Instagram account it probably won’t take more than a scroll or two to find what our grandparents would have called “home movies”.

One such genre of videos posted to social media is the “internet challenge”, often harmless bits of fun occasionally raising money for charity. Think back to the ice bucket challenge during the previous decade.

However from time to time, what started out as a joke can turn darker and have deadly consequences. Here’s a look back at internet challenges and trends that turned fatal:

Happy Slapping

An early example of a viral trend on the internet was “Happy Slapping”. It came out swinging in 2005, quite literally.

More and more people were starting to have mobile phones with cameras and with it came the ability to film themselves getting up to mischief. One such example was “Happy Slapping”, which saw people being filmed randomly attacking strangers in the street - usually slapping them.

Pop star Myleene Klass was a high profile victim of a ‘happy slap’ when she was attacked outside her London home in late 2005. Unfortunately it did not take long for these viral stunts to turn deadly.

A man in Yorkshire called Gavin Waterhouse, from Keighley, died after his spleen was ruptured in one such attack. Among those charged and prosecuted for the killing was a teenage girl, who was jailed for two years for filming the attack - she was just 15 at the time, The Guardian reported at the time.

In another tragic incident, a bullied teenage girl fell to her death after trying to escape a “happy slapping” attack in 2008, the Daily Mail reported.

Planking

You may remember this one from the 2010s, it made plenty of headlines at the time. Planking, also known as the lying down game, is a challenge that involves lying down in an unusual place.

It could be quite harmless - “planking” on your sofa or the kitchen floor for example. However some people took it further and “planked” in more dangerous places. In one incident in 2009 hospital workers in Swindon made headlines after “planking” during a night shift, leading to suspensions for staff.

Unfortunately things only got more tragic from there. A couple years later in 2011, the Brisbane Times reported on 15 May that a 20-year-old man had plunged to his death from a hotel in the city after “planking” on a balcony on the seventh floor.

One Chip Challenge

This might be a challenge less familiar to those of us not from the United States. But it does fit into a large genre of internet challenges based around food - think the cinnamon challenge.

To take part you had to film yourself (or be filmed) eating a very spicy crisp from the brand Paqui. It was seasoned with the Carolina Reaper, one of the hottest chillies in the world, and you had to last as long as possible without eating or drinking anything else.

The challenge was actually marketed by the company behind the Paqui crisp brand - Amplify Snack Brands, who were acquired by The Hershey Company in 2017. However it was axed last year after the tragic death of a 14-year-old boy.

Harris Wolobah from Worcester, Massachusetts attempted the challenge then complained of severe stomach pains. He died a few hours later and Paqui pulled the Carolina Reaper crisps.

The autopsy report, NBC Boston reports, stated that he died of cardiopulmonary arrest “in the setting of recent ingestion of food substance with high capsaicin concentration”.

Swatting

Less an internet challenge, than a dark trend and deadly harassment tactic deployed on certain parts of the web. Swatting is when someone places a fake call to emergency services sparking police or even heavily armed officers (S.W.A.T from which it gets its name) descending on an address.

It can easily turn tragic as armed officers are involved and there have been a number of fatalities resulting from swatting incidents. In 2017 a man in Wichita was killed in a swatting incident sparked over an argument on Call of Duty, CNN reported at the time. Andrew Finch was shot by police after stepping outside to see why his house was surrounded, AP reported.

While in April of 2020 a 60-year-old in Tennessee, called Mark Herring, died from a heart attack after police responded to false reports of a woman being killed at his house - and it was organised in an attempt to get him to give up a handle on Twitter, NBC News reported. An 18-year-old was jailed for five years over the incident.

Should more be done to police new challenges when they appear online, to prevent further tragedies - or would that be impossible to implement. Share your thoughts with our tech writer by emailing: [email protected].