That 'Charlie Charlie' Demon Challenge Was a Viral Marketing Stunt

Last week, teens all over freaked out about the “Charlie Charlie” challenge that had something to do with pencils and summoning a demon to answer your questions. A Mexican demon. Named Charlie. Very #real and #believable. Turns out that all those idiot high-schoolers were totally played by a very real commercial for a movie.

According to Uproxx, the challenge was part of a viral marketing campaign for a movie called The Gallows (I’ve seen a preview for it at the theater and it looks terrifying). I wasn’t going to see this movie in the first place because I do not fuck with ghosts, but now I can pretend that I’m not going to see it because it gave stupid teenagers a reason to be stupid on the internet and also allowed people on my Facebook feed to talk about how demons would possess you because you were opening a door into their world by stacking pencils on top of each other and asking ghosts questions.

Anyway, here’s an ad for the film, which tells you absolutely nothing about what will happen in it, just like the trailer I saw in the theater. I do get the sense that lots of people will be crying in a dark room, and that bored teenagers have decided that this is the best way to spend their summer vacations.

If you want more very real and scary things to try at home, you can find them at this website, appropriately titled Scary for Kids. Spooooooky!