You know I say, “Kill the culture, and it will kill you back.” Well, it’s no longer just a figure of speech.
Have you heard of “the Hot Water Challenge”? I only heard of it this morning, on the radio. It consists of pouring boiling water on yourself, or sticking your hand in it, or trying to drink it (http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/healthtrending/kids-are-trying-something-called-the-hot-water-challenge-at-least-1-has-died/ar-AApM9uk?OCID=ansmsnnews11). A little girl who took a dare to drink boiling water has died, and others have been seriously injured. The children involved are young–aged 8, 10, 11, etc.
The children say they were inspired by youtube videos. Believe it. As I write this, there are still quite a few “Hot Water Challenge” videos on youtube. No, I’m not going to link to any. I did watch one: some jidrool, seemingly in his early 20s, poured a bucket of boiling water over himself… with totally predictable results. Another video bore the title, “I just cooked my hand.”
Uh, like, maybe these videos should be taken off the site? Or would that be some kind of social injustice?
Who can explain this? Granted, kids haven’t lived long enough to learn much, and when left to their own devices, can do so extremely stupid things. Especially when other kids dare them to do it. We laugh at poor Flick, in Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story, who takes a dare to touch his tongue to a frozen metal post–and his tongue freezes to it, and the fire department has to come to rescue him. But kids will do even dumber things than that.
The lesson taught by public school is that your age-group peers are the most important people in your life, and you’ll do just about anything to impress them, fit in with them, or win their approval. That lesson is powerfully reinforced by our popular culture, and made deadly by a child’s natural ignorance or disregard of consequences.
The only way to counter this is to make the child’s family, and God as Lord over all, more important to him than the other kids. So that if he does try something stupid, at least it won’t be disastrously or even fatally stupid.
But overcoming this aspect of our culture won’t be easy. And you can’t just keep them in a 24/7 supervised bubble all throughout their childhood: because if you do, when they finally grow old enough to break out of it, they will be entirely defenseless.
Social media has made children addicted to likes and views for validation. I feel, and this is just my opinion, it is creating a want in children’s heads to post things that assure it will go viral – even if they have to temporarily suffer for the spotlight via bodily injury. Also, this summers Facebook shooter in Cleveland, became instantly famous for his crime he committed while on Facebook live – shooting an elderly man in the face and killing him. Social media fans the flames and the CEO’s and creators of these cesspools of reality tv rejects, rake in the profits for advertising revenue generated by clicks and views. It is degenerate business.
OMG! This is terrible.
I’ve come to the conclusion that our society has rushed headlong into the online world without setting any limits. Online videos can be a great way to share knowledge, but they can also be a great way to share harmful information.
Some of those youtube “hot water” videos are fake, too–but a 10-year-old would be easily fooled into thinking a bucket of boiling water won’t seriously hurt him.
It’s just unthinkable that anyone would create a video like that. WTH is wrong with people?
Is there is no God and no truth, as humanists are so fond of teaching us, there can be no absolute right or wrong, either: no morality except for whatever can be made to stick by brute force or political maneuvering.
The result is a moral desert.
We are definitely in a moral desert.
Someone on another forum I frequent commented that he was convinced social media was contributing to the decline of western civilization. Can’t say I don’t disagree with him. We live in an age where the accumulated knowldge of mankind is at our fingertips, but we don’t seem to be getting smarter. Instead we use this technology for silly things, like boiling yourself alive.
The Internet has made worldwide communication possible in a manner which has not existed since Babel.
In the days of Babel, God saw that fallen humans were using their collective skills in a manner which opposed God’s will. He scrambled their language and made it impossible for them to all work together in one community. This slowed the rate of progress of human civilization, but it also slowed the rate of progress for some of the bad things which were happening.
While we still have the burden of multiple languages, we also have new ways of communicating and even computerized translation. Information shared by video may cross language boundaries as well.
Until Lee posted this, I had no idea such a thing was happening, but I find it quite troubling. I don’t even want to contemplate the details, just the concept of such a “challenge” is bad enough.
Amen, come quickly Lord Jesus.
The fellowship we have on this blog wouldn’t be possible without the social media. It can be used for good or evil. That it’s so often used for evil says more about the people than their technology.
It’s just a shame that every good thing so often ends up used for bad purposes.
This is a new one. As Unknowable said, I hadn’t heard of this until you posted it, Lee. However –
If you do a YouTube search on “blue whale challenge”, you will come up with many, many videos on this deadly challenge ‘game’ that supposedly occurs over 50 days – one challenge per day, culminating in the final 50th day challenge: suicide! It has been reported that several have actually died as a result of this ‘game’.
YouTube and Facebook are busily censoring conservative and Christian messages, but evidently welcome this insanity and continue to allow such videos and postings.
I’m not sure it’s possible to be more disgusted than I am these days. Humanity hasn’t much humanness left. Not surprising though. Kick God out and this is what we get.
“I’m not sure it’s possible to be more disgusted than I am these days”
Same here. It’s really a distressing situation.
Distressing is a good word. Distressed that we seem to be losing nearly an entire generation that seemingly has no respect or regard for life – not even their own. They appear to have an attitude of ‘get what you can while you can however you can and live for the moment’. This weighs on my heart.
There seems to be a straight-line descent into anarchy.
That used to be just a term I learned in school but was unthinkable in this country. The best advice comes from the Holy Word of God (paraphrased) – keep looking up for your redemption draws nigh. And that day mercifully draws closer.
There’s a reason why I call cat videos “sanity medicine.”
God has put us here in this evil age for a reason (which He has not confided to me). I’m not sure exactly what He expects of us; but I am sure He wants us to bear witness to the truth of His word, to the Lordship of Christ, to His glory and His righteousness, and to the hope of redemption that He holds out to every age… even this one.
I have given this a lot of thought myself. The only answer I can come up with is that there are untold multitudes of people, worldwide, whom are fed up by the things happening in our day. Some of them, perhaps most of them, are put off by the hypocrisy in the mainstream churches and may resist worshipping the True God because they associate His worship with negative things happening in organized religion. Perhaps we’ll be able to help some of these to become worshippers as the conditions in the world continue to deteriorate.
As Lee has said, kids have always dared each other to do stupid things. I remember some of these “double-dares” from my own childhood. But in the age of instant communication, it’s a lot easier for the stupidity to spread beyond a small circle of stupid kids to the whole world — a world of (supposed) adults as well as kids. And then the “can you top this” game begins, with more and more jaded people seeking bigger and bigger thrills and opportunities to show off their daring to others. But nothing ever satisfies, because none of it is grounded in God. So the addiction gets worse and worse.
However, as Lee has also said, the age of instant communication has also made it easier for the Word to spread, and for those who resist the culture rot — or frenzy — to encourage and strengthen each other, as we do here. God can always bring good out of evil.
“My soul clings to You; Your right hand holds me fast.” (Psalm 63)