Today’s kids are getting a bad rap for purposely poisoning themselves by eating laundry detergent (among other things), but the truth is that teenagers and their underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes have never been the best at avoiding activities that could get them killed. If there was a dare involved, every previous generation of kids could be talked into all manner of stupid tricks.
Here are a few you might have forgotten about…or maybe you just wanted to.
#15. Cherry in the fridge.
“I am older than most here, I remember a ton of ads on tv telling children not to play hide and seek in old refrigerators because they would become trapped and die.”
#14. All the rage.
“Pouring salt on our arms and holding a piece of ice to it for as long as you can was all the rage.”
#13. Swallowing goldfish.
“Swallowing goldfish in the 1930s.”
#12. Star Tripping.
“Star Tripping.” It’s where you spin around at night looking up at the stars for 30-60 seconds, and then your buddy shoots a flashlight in your face for a moment. This entirely disorients you and you fall and roll. I once rolled ~50 feet, the world was spinning so much.
Not really dangerous if you have a decent field, but my friend was prone to hayfever…”
#11. Always been dumb.
“Like a few others have commented, kids at my school did the pass out game. There was also a craze of snorting random shit (crushed up Altoids, pixie sticks, etc). Also licking Big Red gum wrappers and sticking them to your arm until it got all red and swollen. Kids have always been dumb.”
#10. The Sissy Test.
“Remember the Sissy Test…where you take an eraser and rub it on the top of your hand until you have to stop from the pain, usually by that time it’s burned thru enough to bleed and probably required medical care to avoid infection since it basically is a giant burn.”
#9. Pop Rocks and Coke.
“Swallowing Pop Rocks then drinking a Coke to see if our stomach would explode.”
#8. Nice red mark.
“Ours was to lick the wrapper of Big Red gum and stick it to your forehead. Burned like a bitch and left a nice red mark.”
#7. Falling off cliffs.
“Planking. But people starting falling off cliffs.”
#6. In a barrel.
“Those people who would go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.”
#5. A little faint.
“When I was at school we used to do this thing where you’d bend over in front of a wall, hyperventilating then you’d stand up, get a massive head rush then someone would push on your chest and you’d pass out.
Good times.”
#4. The risk of infection.
“Bloody knuckles and Quarters. In 6th grade (early 90s) I remember a flyer being passed out at school about the risk of infection.
In my ultra edgy circle of goth/rivet-head friends (mid-late 90s) they would do shit like light the lighter until it got super hot and press it to the skin to see who could stand it the longest. Also holding a lit cigarette or match between your wrists to see who dropped it first.”
#3. Still had the scar.
“Older boys at my high school were daring each other to see how long they could hold a lump of dry ice on the back of their hands.
The “winner” still had the scar when I bumped into him some years later.”
#2. We always had fire.
“Used to spray Axe on our arms and set it on fire. Unrelated note, where the hell did we always get lighters? None of my friends parents smoked, mine didn’t, and yet we always had fire…”
#1. Five finger fillet.
“Five finger fillet. But when you come to think of it, stabbing a knife between your fingers is much safer than eating a Tide pod.”
