There’s Now a Ridiculous TikTok ‘Slap a Teacher’ Challenge
The stupidity of internet challenges never ceases to amaze me.
Just last month I reported on the ‘Devious Lick’ challenge on TikTok. The challenge encouraged school kids to steal the biggest item they could from school and post video of their take on the internet for God and everybody to see.
At the time, I thought that was the stupidest internet challenge of all-time. Admittedly, it was the stupidest challenge then, but the new challenge for October takes the idiocy to a new, even more criminal level.
These days, the challenge involves slapping a teacher, which, of course, is a serious criminal offense. As a parent of two middle school-aged kids, I plan to sit down and make sure both of them understand how serious this is.
Just like the ‘Devious Lick’ challenge, the ‘Slap a Teacher’ challenge is so wrong on so many levels. My hope is that kids will inherently understand how wrong this is, but sometimes common sense isn’t all that common – especially among young people seeking internet fame.
The good news is that educators are hip to what’s going on and are getting in front of the stupidity. Jenni Benson, president of the Nebraska State Education Association says they have a “zero tolerance” policy for such behavior:
We are calling on parents to talk with their children and let them know that threatening and engaging in physical harm is not a joke. Such action is and will be treated as an assault. There will be zero tolerance for such behavior.
Let’s hope that this ridiculous challenge gets shut down before it takes off.