Netflix Is Begging People to Stop the 'Bird Box' Challenge Immediately
Updated Jan. 4 2019, 10:23 a.m. ET
Netflix's Bird Box is one of the streaming platform's most-talked about titles and is already being called a horror classic by fans of the genre and thrill-seeking masochists everywhere. The tension that's built in the film from the mere presence of blindfolds makes for one of the most uncomfortable (in a good way) viewing experiences in recent memory.
As the saying goes, life imitates art and vice versa, so it didn't take long for people to create a "challenge" based on the film. It seems there's a challenge for everything these days, with more than enough people willing to participate in them regardless of how dangerous they are. Just ask the kids who are vaping tide pods.
But challenges involving blindfolding yourself and trying to go about regular daily activities is a bit much.
So much, Netflix started begging people to stop partaking in the "Bird Box Challenge."
You'd think that a major network would love free social media publicity surrounding them and one of their titles, but not when people are really endangering themselves.
Like people who think it's funny to try the challenge out when they're driving.
Seriously, who thinks it's a good idea to drive blindfolded? I hope that's a very, very sheer blindfold, or these people are CGI-wizards.
Maybe don't include your children in the challenge.
Forcing them to run into walls isn't nice, even if it was unintentional.
People are falling over and really hurting themselves.
Which is funny in the basest, internet-comedy sort of way where one can point their finger at someone like Nelson from the Simpsons and let out a "ha-haaaa", but what if there was a rock or stone wall fixture like the poor dude who tried looking at the computer monitor in the movie cracked his head on? Would the challenge be funny then?
People began pointing out that the Bird Box challenge was nothing new.
I'd like to point out that he's the world's greatest fry cook, so it goes without saying he can probably drive whilst blindfolded.
Others thought the meme could've evolved into something greater.
I don't know why birds are obsessed with biting through boxes, but I am pretty envious that it makes them so happy. I wish I got that happy chewing on cardboard.
Despite Netflix's denunciations, and people's meme treatment of the challenge...
...it hasn't stopped people from doing it and meeting some pretty terrible consequences. I'm hoping this one where someone fell down a set of subway stairs was staged.
YouTubers have jumped on the bandwagon as well.
Like this one young man who hopped in a crazy kar, blindfolded, and ran amok in his house, destroying everything in his blind path.
Even giving a high five to your pals is dangerous with the Bird Box Challenge.
During a blind Skittles taste test, he ended up slapping his boy right in the head. Netflix warned you guys.
Some people are using the excitement of the challenge to liven up blind taste tests, like the dudes above, and Stephanie Soo below.
You're just eating all the garbage that I dream of eating all day with a blindfold. That's not a Bird Box challenge, stop.
But some people committed to the challenge hardcore.
Like these brothers who apparently wore blindfolds for 24 hours and tried going about their day as normal. There were a lot of hiccups, as you could imagine.
And these two gals who couldn't use a horizontal escalator properly whilst blindfolded.
I know how it feels — whenever my physical therapist asks me to try and balance on one leg with my eyes closed, I almost always topple over.
Others took the challenge in a way different direction...
...by channeling their inner creepy lady at the hospital who smashed her face into a window until she bled to death.
While others used it as an opportunity to create a Sandra Bullock-inspired photoshoot.
You can cosplay as anything these days, I guess.
Schools were even getting in on it to liven up their track runs.
Although this guy came in last, someone else in the video had a blindfold on and was straight booking it in a perfectly straight line. That's what I call talent.
It's not just kids who are engaging in this whackiness either.
Bonafide adults with kids of their own are putting themselves through the challenge.
But the number of people who are trying the challenge while driving is really unnerving.
If he gets in an accident, he'll get blood all over that LV scarf. Such a shame.
While some of them might look staged, this one definitely isn't.
Please, this is not cool, don't do what these kids guys.
I'd rather see something much more wholesome.
Like someone simply tripping over a curb and not potentially causing a huge accident and killing a bunch of people on a highway. Thanks.