Bird Box Challenge: Netflix Pleads With Viewers to Please Stop Trying This at Home

Even if you haven't found time to watch Bird Box (2018), the new Netflix horror movie with shades of John Krasinski's A Quiet Place (2018) and M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening (2008), you've probably seen the memes. The film has ignited a rather dangerous viral sensation known as the Bird Box Challenge that is getting so popular that Netflix has warned viewers against taking part, Forbes reports.

Like other online challenges, the Bird Box Challenge involves recording yourself doing something stupid and uploading your attempt to YouTube or some other video platform. In this case, the challenge is to blindfold yourself then try (and usually fail) to get around. The movie takes place in a world where looking at mysterious creatures outside compels people to kills themselves, so the characters must be blindfolded at all times in order to survive.

Without the threat of monsters, the Bird Box Challenge isn't quite as dangerous as some of the other challenges to go viral, like the Tide Pod challenge or the cinnamon challenge. But enough people have shared videos of themselves running into walls to prompt Netflix to take action. In a tweet, the streaming platform urged viewers to please "not end up in the hospital due to memes."

The warning may have came too late for many people who ended up with bruised knees—and egos—after trying it for themselves. Some of the most popular videos of the Bird Box Challenge gone wrong show people tripping, falling, and barreling into furniture.