What Dumb, Dangerous Games Are Kids Playing These Days?

By Anna North | January 17, 2011 | 11:37pm

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Apparently kids today are engaging in “vodka eyeballing” — which, horrifyingly, is exactly what it sounds like. Let’s take a tour of some other dangerous kids’ games, and whether they’re actually harmful.

According to the Daily Mail, “vodka eyeballing” is when you sling a shot of vodka right into your eyeball. Is this safe, you ask? No! No it is not safe at all! One girl did it and she ended up with a seared cornea! Also, the VE, as we’re sure the kids are calling it, won’t even get you drunk. Just put the vodka in your mouth where it belongs. Jesus.

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Once you’ve gone through the stages of shock and disgust on the whole vodka-eyeballing thing, though, the next logical step is to ask if it’s even real. The evidence is thin. The main source for this dubious trend turns out to be the Mail, which also ran a nearly identical piece back in May (which was mocked by the Colbert Report and Gawker). In both pieces, the DM interviewed Melissa Fontaine, the only reformed vodka-eyeballer they can apparently get on record. Fontaine was eager to warn youth about the dangers of ocular alcohol abuse, and its root cause: feminism. She says of her crazy college benders,

The rugby players were the worst. But because of feminism, you’re expected, as a woman, to keep up with them. The guys set a precedent and you have to follow. That’s what drives the whole ladette culture. Women believing they have to be equal in every single way.

That’s right ladies — feminism will sear your corneas. But should you somehow avoid its dangerous clutches, you could still get sucked into …

Mumblety-peg

This is a game where you throw a pocketknife as close to your own foot as possible — or, in an alternate version, splay your fingers out and try to stab the spaces between them really fast. This game is so old and so soft-core that even I have played it. I have retained all my digits. Still, don’t try this at home.

Pop Rocks and Pepsi

I don’t know if eating Pop Rocks and drinking Pepsi is really a “game” exactly, but it’s one more kid-thing that was rumored to be fatal. It’s not. According to Snopes, enough people believed this rumor that General Foods had to take out full-page ads in the ’70s to assure parents that Pop Rocks plus Pepsi would not make their kids’ stomachs explode. Also not capable of doing this: Coke and Mentos.

Chubby bunny

In this one you fill your mouth with marshmallows and try to say “chubby bunny.” Somebody wrote in to Snopes to say she played this at a baby shower, which is weird. But Snopes says a child did die playing this game — twelve-year-old Casey Fish choked to death after playing “Chubby Bunny” unsupervised.

Choking game

Okay, the CDC website actually has an entire page on this one. According to them,

The choking game is a dangerous activity that older children and early adolescents sometimes play to get a brief high. They either choke each other or use a noose to choke themselves. After just a short time, children can pass out, which may lead to serious injury or even death from hanging or strangulation.

And apparently, “since 1995, at least 82 children and adolescents have died as a result of playing ‘the choking game,’ according to a new study by CDC’s Injury Center.” Of course, choking game deaths are nowhere near as common as, say, traffic fatalities — the CDC says 3,000 teens died in car accidents in 2009 alone. Still, the choking game is dangerous. Don’t do it.

And, of course, there’s always souping:

Blind Stupidity: How ‘Vodka Eyeballing’ Drinking Game Is ‘Bad As Pouring Bleach In Your Eye’ [Daily Mail]