Neknominate, also known as neck and nominate, neknomination or neck nomination, is an online

drinking game Drinking games are games which involve the consumption of alcoholic beverages and often enduring the subsequent intoxication resulting from them. Evidence of the existence of drinking games dates back to antiquity. Drinking games have been banned ...

. The original rules of the game require the participants to film themselves drinking a

pint The pint (, ; symbol pt, sometimes abbreviated as ''p'') is a unit of volume or capacity in both the imperial unit, imperial and United States customary units, United States customary measurement systems. In both of those systems it is tradition ...

of an alcoholic beverage, usually beer, in one gulp and upload the footage to the web. A participant then nominates another person to do the same within 24 hours. The game became popular in early 2014, and as it spread it escalated, with nominees performing the challenge in more extreme circumstances, drinking more potent beverages or engaging in dangerous activities either during or immediately after drinking. The British tabloid newspaper ''

Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...

'' reported that at least five deaths in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

are believed to have been directly linked to the drinking game. One of these was Jonathan Byrne from

County Carlow County Carlow ( ; ga, Contae Cheatharlach) is a county located in the South-East Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. Carlow is the second smallest and the third least populous of Ireland's 32 traditional counties. Carlow Cou ...

, whose father later appeared on '' The Late Late Show''.

History

Neknominate originated in New Zealand before spreading to the UK and Ireland. The game's popularity has been linked to a video posted to

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

by Ross Samson, a

London Irish London Irish RFC is a professional rugby union club which competes in the Premiership, the top division of English rugby union. The club has also competed in the Anglo-Welsh Cup, the European Champions Cup and European Challenge Cup. While ...

rugby player, on 25 December 2013, in which he drinks a bottle of beer and says "I nominate all of you whose birthday it’s not. Merry Christmas." After deaths were linked to the game, Samson distanced himself from it. An early mention was made of the game on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

in 2011, when a British man mentioned playing it with a friend via

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

. In 2013, up until Samson's video, the game was only mentioned 198 times on Twitter; in the two weeks after his video, it was mentioned 1,048 times.

Criticism

The game has been criticised for the danger it poses to participants. Five people are believed to have died as a result of playing the game, including a Cardiff man thought to have downed a pint of vodka, and a London hostel worker who reportedly mixed an entire bottle of white wine with a quarter bottle of whisky, a small bottle of vodka and a can of lager. In the latter case, the victim's nominator was interviewed by police, but it was ruled an accidental death without coercion. In Ireland, the group Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society expressed concern that posting the videos could "appeal to and be taken up by vulnerable younger drinkers". Alcohol Action Ireland also shared concerns about the game.

Variants

In February 2014, a group of South Africans adapted the Neknominate game into a challenge to perform

random acts of kindness A random act of kindness is a nonpremeditated, inconsistent action designed to offer kindness towards the outside world. The phrase "practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty" was written by Anne Herbert on a placemat in Sausalito, Cal ...

for others. Similar kindness challenges include

Feed the Deed Feed The Deed, also known as #FeedtheDeed, is a social media pay-it-forward initiative that started in February 2014. Participants film themselves performing a creative random act of kindness, then nominate friends and family to continue on the cha ...

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and SmartNominate in France, which encourages participants to donate food to homeless people or give blood. The

Ice Bucket Challenge The Ice Bucket Challenge, sometimes called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, is an activity involving the pouring of a bucket of ice water over a person's head, either by another person or self-administered, to promote awareness of the disease amyo ...

, an activity involving dumping a bucket of ice water on someone's head to promote awareness of the disease

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

(also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) and encourage donations to research

went viral Viral phenomena or viral sensation are objects or patterns that are able to replicate themselves or convert other objects into copies of themselves when these objects are exposed to them. Analogous to the way in which viruses propagate, the ter ...

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

during July–August 2014.

References

External links

'Lethal' drinking game Nekonominate sweeps social media
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neknominate Drinking games 2014 in the United Kingdom 2010s fads and trends Challenges Articles containing video clips Internet memes introduced in 2013 Internet memes introduced in 2014

History

Criticism

Variants

See also

References

External links