After a slew of dares and challenges which became trends in the ever-growing wild internet, another one has recently popped out. Following the wet idea of the Ice bucket challenge, this one also involves water – put inside a condom and then dropped onto a person's head.
I done it #condomchallenge #DontTryThisAtHome check my hair lolololol - K pic.twitter.com/xxt6thLGsM
— MiC LOWRY (@WeAreMicLowry) November 25, 2015
Done right, the water-filled condom just wraps itself in the person's face, while maintaining hold of the water. At times, it bursts and gets the victim (or hopeful) wet. At other times, it just bounces off like a balloon – which it actually is.
According to Digital Trends, this new craze started in Japan last week, when a video titled “Japanese Condom Head Challenge” was posted in YouTube. It featured two guys in a tub, with one holding the water bomb atop while the other sitting down, waiting for the fun to happen.
This video reached more than 20,000 views, and has been reposted many times as well.
Now dubbed the #CondomChallenge (in what seems to be a homage to the ice bucket challenge as well), this trend has become an unlikely campaign.
According to Medical Daily, it was started to "help raise safe sex awareness, because, they reason, if it can fit around the head on a guy’s shoulder then it can most certainly fit around the one below their waist." However, as the latex material wraps snugly around the head, some concerns have risen against it.
The Huffington Post quoted Dr. Nitin Shiori of Pharmacy2U saying that there are possible risks for this campaign.
"The Ice Bucket Challenge was a generally fun and popular trend across social media which increased general awareness of ALS and helped to raise money for the cause," Shiori said. "Unfortunately this particular trend involving condoms carries a significant risk of injury and suffocation if done incorrectly."
Another health professional agreed. Dr. Helen Webberley of the Oxford Online Pharmacy also told HuffPost that the trend poses some dangers.
"While I am a big fan of anything that promotes safe sex and, crucially, gets our youngsters talking about safe sex, the act of putting a very strong rubber bag on someone's head makes me very concerned due to the potential risks of suffocation," she said.
"Please be careful here, I would hate for an innocent game to end in tragedy."
As health professionals have said that the trend poses some amount of danger, parents should be aware of what their kids are doing. This campaign might be able to push the use of condoms, but not in the way that it was originally intended for.
