EVERY year, when we are halfway through it, a new challenge takes the internet by a storm. While some of them such as the ice bucket challenge was started with the intention of raising awareness on Lou Gehrig’s disease, some others such as the Blue Whale challenge has proven quite harmful.
The trend that has gone viral this year requires much agility and skill. The bottle cap challenge is a new viral trend where people knock off a bottle cap with a roundhouse kick, without toppling the bottle. It took off early this month, and its #bottlecapchallenge hashtag has already exploded all over the social media.
While the social media is flooded with people taking up the challenge, including action hero Jason Statham and UFC star Conor McGregor, here’s how it really started.
The original challenge was started by members of the mixed martial art fraternity, but it was definitely UFC Featherweight Champion Max Holloway and designer Errolson Hugh who made it popular.
The task, however, caught the attention of the challenge-loving netizens when Holloway put up a video last week where he can be seen unscrewing a capped bottle with a spinning back kick. He captioned the post: “Passing this on to our guy John Mayer.”
The singer took up the challenge and shared his own version and challenged actor Jason Statham in turn, who posted a slow-motion video of the stunt. It has received over 15 million views.
And the rest is history.
However, as regular kids and internet peeps shared videos of their own takes at this physically demanding ordeal, the original martial arts theme of the challenge gained a completely new spin with comedic elements mixed in. After all, not everyone is a Taekwondo master or a sports fighter, and amusing failures are bound to happen, intentionally or not. So, kick responsibly.