Skip to main content

Teens promote safe sex unsafely with newest trend #CondomChallenge

It’s called the #condomchallenge — but it may not hold water.

Say what you want about teenagers on the Internet, but social media is increasingly becoming a powerful tool for encouraging (or at least attempting) people to participate in social good. Take, for example, the latest #condomchallenge intended to spotlight the importance of safe sex and using condoms. But despite the best of intentions, this stunt seems astonishingly unsafe.

Recommended Videos

The trend involves filling a condom as full as possible with water, so it looks like a blown-up balloon, and then dropping it onto someone else’s head. If you’ve managed this part correctly, the condom should end up wrapped around his or her head, with the water surrounding the face, yet still in the condom. The concern, of course, is not just the risk of suffocating while in a tub with a condom sucked to your face but also the possibility of drowning from the water inside the condom.

Indeed, for the most part, it is rarely a good idea to put a condom over your head.

The craze apparently kicked off last week by a group of friends in Japan in a YouTube video titled, “Japanese Condom Head Challenge.” The video currently has over 20,000 views and to some might seem an unlikely place for a safe sex campaign to start. Just a couple years ago, Japanese young people also started the trend to completely stop having sex, raising concerns that Japan “might eventually perish into extinction,” according to The Guardian.

The #condomchallenge isn’t the first time condoms have become part of an unsafe Internet craze either. Around the same time people began worrying about young people in Japan abstaining from sex, young people in other areas of the world participated in a trend that involved snorting condoms and then pulling them out of their mouths. And then there’s the cinnamon challenge. Sheesh.

While many of these trends seem disturbing and come with risks, some believe the various condom crazes on social media can become useful. And, at least we can rest assured knowing that young people might finally get the importance of using a condom properly.

Christina Majaski
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Christina has written for print and online publications since 2003. In her spare time, she wastes an exorbitant amount of…
Bluesky finally adds a feature many had been waiting for
A blue sky with clouds.

Bluesky has been making a lot of progress in recent months by simplifying the process to sign up while at the same time rolling out a steady stream of new features.

As part of those continuing efforts, the social media app has just announced that users can now send direct messages (DMs).

Read more
Reddit just achieved something for the first time in its 20-year history
The Reddit logo.

Reddit’s on a roll. The social media platform has just turned a profit for the first time in its 20-year history, and now boasts a record 97.2 million daily active users, marking a year-over-year increase of 47%. A few times during the quarter, the figure topped 100 million, which Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman said in a letter to shareholders had been a “long-standing milestone” for the site.

The company, which went public in March, announced the news in its third-quarter earnings results on Tuesday.

Read more
Worried about the TikTok ban? This is how it might look on your phone
TikTok splash screen on an Android phone.

The US Supreme Court has decided to uphold a law that would see TikTok banned in the country on January 19. Now, the platform has issued an official statement, confirming that it will indeed shut down unless it gets some emergency relief from the outgoing president.

“Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19,” said the company soon after the court’s verdict.
So, what does going dark mean?
So, far, there is no official statement on what exactly TikTok means by “going dark.” There is a lot of speculation out there on how exactly the app or website will look once TikTok shutters in the US.

Read more