NekNomination: A Primer

NekNomination: a challenge game, spread by social media.

When you are involved (by someone else, when they connect the game to your social media profile), you have been “NekNominated”. You execute your own stunt, and post a video of it to social media sites. At the end of your stunt, you challenge specific social contacts to continue the game with their own stunts.

It is believed to have started as a simple drinking game in Australia. You video yourself in some sort of unique situation drinking a pint (of beer or ale), and challenge your friends to continue the game. They must follow up with a post and challenge within 24 hours, to continue the game and not fail.

As the game traveled around the world following social media connections, it took on more creative AND more dangerous styles. In the UK, cocktails replaced pints (hard liquor or spirits) and some players died of acute alcohol poisoning. Others have died of the risks associated with such drinking challenges.

Many NekNominations involve high-risk activities, and many involve alcohol. NekNomination deaths are increasing awareness of the game, at the same time some promoters are trying to highlight non-alcohol challenges to help continue the game in the face of criticisms.

Social media is fueling the advance of the game, as “admirers” congratulate and encourage participants to express themselves in unique ways, and continue the game by challenging their own social contacts to follow on with their own (at the end of your social media video showing your stunt, you “NekNominate” others to “do better”).

One participant said this after independently creating and posting her NekNominate video and challenge:

In an article in the United Kingdom’s Independent new site, a 26 year old describes his creative NekNominate video:

Johnnie, a 26-year-old tutor, filmed his friend dressed as a sheikh drink down a pint of beer in a Muslim area of Coventry and strip off in the road. “We’ve taken it down now,” he says sheepishly of the YouTube clip. “Looking back, it probably wasn’t the most intelligent thing to do.”

and when asked to comment on the danger associated with drinking strong alcohol like many are doing, Johnny offered this evidence of why the game continues to be popular:

In another story, tons of attention poured to a Mom and her son, after the mom posted a photo of her son on the family couch. He was passed out, sitting covered with vomit, after drinking “3 bottles of Vodka” in a challenge.

Cue the Darwin Award commentary here.