Dangerous Skull Breaker challenge causes public outrage

The latest harmful viral social media challenge, the Skull Breaker, has led to public outrage and even lawsuits due to injuries sustained by participants.

The challenge has also reached South Africa, with NWU students and experts expressing shock.

A video was recorded at a high school in the Moot area in Pretoria. SAPeoplenews reports that there have been cases of the challenge in Rustenburg, in the North-West province and it has also been taking place at a private school in Kyalami. 

A parent of one of the learners at the private school in Kyalami said to SAPeoplenews that students are not pranking each other but actually voluntarily taking turns being the one to jump. They are all well aware of the challenge – which is not to fall,” the parent said. It is unknown whether anyone was hurt in any of the cases.

In New Jersey in the United States, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office charged two minors on Tuesday, 3 March, with third-degree aggravated assault and endangering an injured victim following the incident in January this year. 

The challenge caused the victim to suffer a seizure, a head injury and concussion, as reported by The Washington Post. 

According to SAPeoplenews, parents of an injured girl in Miami, United States, are pursuing a lawsuit against the school for not warning parents and children of the dangers of the challenge. 

The Skull Breaker challenge, also known as the “Tripping Jump”, originated in Spain and according to MailOnline, it has led to the death of a Brazilian student. 

Although the challenge started on TikTok and most of the videos of the challenge are posted on this popular mobile application, the videos are now also being posted on other social media platforms like YouTube and Twitter.

The Skull Breaker challenge starts with three participants standing next to each other. All three jump, and while in the air, participants one and three, kick the person in the middle’s legs out from under them – causing a potentially dangerous fall. 

This results in the person falling hard to the ground landing on their head or back area. The person in the middle is in most cases unaware of what is going to happen, as in some cases the other two people convince them the challenge is merely to see which person can jump the highest. Reports have it that the person in the middle is sometimes bullied and coerced into doing the challenge.

Depending on how the person in the middle hits the ground, they can suffer injuries ranging from having anything from broken bones, skull fractures, neck fractures, brain bleeding, paralysis, hematomas, bruising, loss of consciousness, concussion, seizures and even death.

Harm Stavast, NWU senior psychologist at student counselling and development, said there are several factors that may be at play when a young person decides to participate in social media challenges, “all of them related to the level of mental development”.

Stavast said the brain’s reward system becomes highly active right around the time of puberty. It gradually develops to an adult level, which it reaches around the age of 25. This makes adolescents and young adults more inclined to take risks. 

”One of the side effects of these changes in the reward system is that adolescents and young adults become much more sensitive to peer pressure than they were earlier or will be as adults,” he said. “So, for instance, a 20-year-old is 50% more likely to do something risky if two friends are watching than if he’s alone.” 

Natalie Thysse (22), a final year PGCE student, said, “I do not believe it is actually a challenge; it is attempted murder. It is dangerous and the people who record the video are just as guilty as the people tripping the person, as they watch how other people get hurt.”

Andrea Botes, 20, a third-year BCom student, said, “It is inhumane and mean. It is not something that people should want to do. Our generation is focused on likes, views and shares, as people believe it represents how much you are worth and that’s why they do these challenges.”

Meanwhile, Thailand has banned and criminalised the challenge, while administrators at a school in Colombia condemned the challenge, as reported by Refinery29.

The latest hashtags opposing the Skull Breaker challenge on TikTok is #skullbreakerchallenge with 7.4 million views, #stopskullbreaker with 747 700 views, and #stopskullbreakerchallenge with 62 300 views. Through these hashtags and videos, people aim to inform social media users of the potential dangers.

Botes said, “These challenges are a vicious cycle that we will not be able to just get rid of. People can be very selfish and self-centred as it is about what I can do so that more people know me, see and like me and that is unfortunately coupled with likes, follows, shares and views.”

Stavast said, “Continuous awareness campaigns are needed to enable students to make decisions based on accurate, relevant and rational information.”

TikTok posted an article on their website on 28 February, regarding the posting of dangerous challenges.

In a summary of the article, TikTok said to The Washington Post, “The safety and well-being of our users is a top priority at TikTok. As we make clear in our Community Guidelines, we do not allow content that encourages, promotes, or glorifies dangerous challenges that might lead to injury, and we remove reported behaviour or activity that violates our guidelines. To help keep our platform safe, we have introduced a slate of safety features geared towards enhancing our users’ experience, including tools for reporting inappropriate content and for managing privacy settings.” 

YouTube has also removed similar videos labelling them as “violating community guideline” while leaving the informative videos.

The Skull Breaker challenge is the latest in a series of potentially harmful social media challenges. In 2019 there was the viral Bird Box Challenge which had people attempting all kinds of stunts while blindfolded. One person took the challenge so far as to try to drive blindfolded.

In 2018, there was the Kiki challenge where participants had to jump out of the passenger side of a moving car and dance to rapper Drake’s song, “In my feelings.” In both of these challenges, people were seriously injured. Videos and memes of both of these challenges were primarily posted on Twitter and YouTube.