Skull Breaker Challenge

About

Skull Breaker Challenge is a viral TikTok game in which an unsuspecting person stands between two others and jump. While the person is in the air, the two on the side kick their legs. The dangerous challenge which is thought to have started in South America in late January 2020, caused injuries worldwide.

Origin

All original #Skullbreakerchallenge videos have been deleted from TikTok. On February 4th, a TikTok was reposted to YouTube of three school children from Venezuela under the name rompcráneos according to Heavy.^[1] The video has been reposted to Twitter by @anusehgal with the caption, "“skull breaker” challenge is the new headache in schools. Several children have been fractured. The trend is viral #skullbreakerchallenge" (shown below).

Spread

On February 8th, 2020, Facebook^[3] user Valerie Hodson posted pictures of her son in the hospital (shown below, left). The post gained over 57,000 shares in a week and was captioned,

I really contemplated posting this, but I feel there needs to be awareness of this malicious cruel viral prank.
On Wednesday my son was asked to do a jumping contest with his 2 "friends", when he jumped up, the 2 boys kicked him, as hard as they could, so his legs flew out in front of him. He landed hard flat on his back and head, as he struggled to get up he lost consciousness, he fell forward landing on his face. The school monitor ran to his side, all the while the 2 boys were snickering and laughing as his stiff unconscious body lay on the asphalt.
Fast forward at the hospital, he has a head injury, stiches in his face, severe cuts inside his mouth and 2 front teeth I have to keep on eye on.
This apparently is a Tik Tok viral prank being filmed and gaining likes on social media.
**Note: Thought I'd clarify, no he did not know this was going to happen. The boys in question he has known for quite sometime, so his trust of them was warrented. The premise of the prank is to get an unsuspecting individual to jump, so the pranksters can kick/trip the person to see how hard they fall.

On February 11th, Facebook^[4] user Teri Wimmer Smith also posted a picture of her injured son who was "unknowingly tiktok pranked" (shown below, right). The post garnered over 120 reacts and 67 shares in a week.

TikTok and Twitter users began posting more examples of the challenge to warn parents and children. Twitter user @britishchickAD tweeted a video with the caption, "This is the skull breaker challenge. Please please PLEASE don’t do this 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 People have died from this (I cut the video I received from another mum)" (shown below). On February 18th, the Manila Bulletin^[2] reported "In Thailand, to deter people from trying this challenge, Thai police warned those who caused severe injuries to others from the “skull breaker” challenge can face jail terms of up to 10 years and pay a maximum fine of 200,000 baht (about P324,000)."

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References