A couple of potentially dangerous social media trends have been making headlines in the United States lately. One of them is called ‘Door Kicking’ challenge, which as the name suggests, involves social media users (mostly teenagers) aggressively kicking or banging doors and running away.
The idea behind this senseless trend is to scare the home owners. Clips showing kids kicking random front doors and running away have been circulating and getting viral on social media, particularly TikTok, prompting police departments to issue warnings and advisories.
This challenge is already having consequences for some. For example, one particular family alleged they had their door kicked 18 times. The harrowing experience has pushed them to relocate. Yes, you heard that right.
Expectedly, police departments across the US have swung into action based on the complaints filed by targeted homeowners. And while investigations are ongoing, the police have issued warning that this trend may end up in a tragedy for some kids.
Their point is that if a kid’s leg enters the home during the door kicking challenge, then in some states it can be considered as an act of trespassing or burglary, and the homeowner may end up defending themselves by using a fire weapon in this case.
While that’s an extreme case of course, you can’t rule the possibility out. A more likely outcome could be criminal charges against these kids, which has already happened in multiple cases so far.
The Door kicking prank isn’t exactly new, as reports about this challenge have been popping up for quite some time now, but the activity around this trend has picked up sharply in the past few weeks.
Moving on, the other challenge that’s hitting headlines is the UrbanEx trend, wherein you are supposed to explore abandoned buildings. This trend has already resulted in a few people being arrested. For example, three 18-year-olds were put behind bars for trespassing as they entered the Houston Astrodome (which has been closed since 2009) around midnight.
The UrbanEx challenge has resulted in a similar outcome for other participants as well.
For now, the police are advising parents to talk to their kids in order to make them understand the risks of these potentially dangerious social media challenges.
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Himanshu Arora
292 Posts
I have been writing tech-focused articles since 2010. In my around 15 years of experience so far, I have written for many leading publications, including Computerworld, GSMArena, TechSpot, HowtoForge, LinuxJournal, and MakeTechEasier to name a few. I also co-founded PiunikaWeb, which went on to become a huge success within 5 years of its inception. Here at TechIssuesToday, I aim to offer you helpful information in a way that you won't find anywhere else easily.
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