‘Choking Game’ Takes a Surprisingly Dark Turn
HealthDay News reports that, according to a recent study, 82 children have died from playing “the choking game” since 1995. If you don’t know how to play the game, then you probably just don’t understand what the word “choking” means. You may have heard of The Choking Game by one of its other names, “blackout game,” “pass out game,” “scarf game,” or “space monkey,” (seriously).
In an effort to achieve a euphoric state, a bunch of kids sit around choking each other all day, just like a bunch of space monkeys, evidently, and some of them, for some reason, die.
You know, I was once a kid and I, miraculously, managed to entertain myself and not choke to death at the same time, and I didn’t even have some of the new-fangled toys the kids are playing with these days, (tamagatchis?). Do I think our children are getting dumber? Short answer, yes. Long answer, yes I do, very much so.
The article goes on to say that 93% of the victims’ parents had no idea this game was being played. First of all, what the fuck, Other-Seven-Percent? Second of all, maybe the problem is just that no one is aware of this Space Monkey phenomenon and, as a respected journalist, it is my duty to spread the word about this very serious, totally retarded problem.
Moving on to what I’m sure will be a recurring feature, I bring you:
This Week in Hating Hannah Montana:
Watchdog and buzz killer Consumer Reports are chastising that bitch who plays Hannah Montana for setting a bad example by failing to wear a seatbelt in her new, freedom-hating, orphan-punching movie, Hannah Montana and the Six Ways to Drown a Puppy. Consumer Reports stated that
“It seems to us that Miley, her father, and Disney had a perfect opportunity to help influence teens and counteract-rather than encourage-this trend.”
You know who else didn’t wear seatbelts? It was the Nazis. The Nazis didn’t wear seatbelts. Everyone knows that; it was one of the few holes in their otherwise airtight military strategy. We, (the Cracked audience and someday, God willing, the world,) are watching you, Montana.
PS Did you guys hear Hannah Montana invented Space Monkey? True story.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
True, I was there. She said, “You are a fuck space monkey!” and then she choked this kid to death.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I once pretended to pass out from the pass-out game to impress my friend’s hot older cousin who wore Doc Martens and smoked Marlboro Reds. Needless to say, she was very impressed.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Yeah, I managed to make it to adulthood without once ever desiring to choke myself or one of my friends for fun (I had other reasons to want to choke my friends), and none of my aquaintences ever offered to choke me or informed me that this was something that might be a way to entertain ourselves. You know what I did instead?? Smoked cigarettes and drank peppermint schnapps!! When did the slight buzz of a cigarette or the major buzz of alcohol become “not high enough”? It boggles my mind…. (Btw, I never thought I’d be making a case FOR underage drinking, but considering the alternative…)
“So, what do you want to do after the football game tonight?”
“Hmmm, wanna go back to my place and strangle each other until we pass out and convulse on the floor of my bedroom?”
“Fuck you, freak! I’m gonna steal a pack of cigs from the gas station and then pick the lock on my parents liquor cabinet….you know, something remotely NORMAL for teenagers to do.”
“Oh okay, well, if I’m not at school on Monday, it’s probably b/c I accidentally killed myself, so see you then….maybe.”
WTF!?!?!?
February 15th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Darwin must be rolling in his grave pretty frantically right now.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I played the choking game way back in the day, before I discovered better way to pass out, like alcohol. But when we killed somebody doing it we just went and buried them out in the woods and told their parents we hadn’t seen them and take bets on how long it would take to see on a milk carton. Good times, Good Times. Yeah, today’s kids are dumb.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
The other hole in the Nazis’ airtight military strategy? Eye patches. Sometimes I think the real reason the Allies won is that the Nazis lacked depth perception.
February 15th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
A kid passed out at our Elementary school from that game. He was the same kid who later passed out from sniffing markers with inhuman vigor.
Also, Daniel, I’m on chapter 4 of Bartender. It’s hilarious.
February 15th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Thank you very much, Sir, I’m glad you enjoy it.
February 15th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
When I was a kid, my older cousins convinced me to let him barehug me after I purposefully hyper-ventilated myself. I passed out and had visions of friendly people waving at me while they stood on purple clouds. It felt like forever but I was only out of it for about 10 seconds. Apparently I was having a fit at the time and the witnesses thought I was faking it because my eyes were open.
So yes, I was a dumb arse kid who trusted my cousin but atleast I found God.
February 15th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Hm. Interesting.
February 15th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
NOT! But that would explain the whole Christian religion. Believers were all dumb arses as kids and all played the choking game.
February 15th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
It did happen, but I know it was just a hallucination and not real.
February 15th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Jamie, how could you hate Dan? He’s so fluffy…
February 16th, 2008 at 12:49 am
I used to choke myself when I was a teenager. Only I did it alone in my bedroom.
And it was a different kind of choking to what your all talking about.
I think you know the kind I mean.
The masturbatory kind.
Chokin’ the chicken if you know what I mean.
What I’m trying to say is I masturbated.
A lot.
Still do, in fact.
February 16th, 2008 at 1:03 am
If only we could get all these kids to choke Hannah Montana instead of themselves …
February 16th, 2008 at 1:38 am
When I was a kid, we just knocked each other out playing Power Rangers.
February 16th, 2008 at 2:07 am
Know what the problem is? Kids today are growing up without the benefit of the INXS lesson. Without knowing the story of Michael Hutchence, how are they to know that strangling themselves is a potentially unpleasant thing to do?
February 16th, 2008 at 4:35 am
so these kids are choking each other and not even having sex while they’re doing it? yeah, that’s really stupid.
February 16th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
And if we tell them that breathing hard and jacking off actually ARE the true fundementals of consciousness expansion and talking to ‘god’?
And that’ sall there is? No more, no mas, nada, zip zero. All else is pure crap. 30K years of human evolution proves it.
That ought to send the child suicide rate a bit higher than these clumsy ones with murderous fingers… snicker.
February 16th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
I remember this from when I was a kid. We had rented the local firehall for my 10th birthday party (which was Hawiian themed, if I remember correctly) and the whole night was to be filled with limbo-ing, dancing, and (god willing) me getting some action….basically the night ended with the fucktard baseball players playing the choking game in the corner while we girls watched from the other corner and pretended to be impressed, when in fact we were weirded out to no end…thats my two cents…
Moral being-Didn’t impress me then, don’t care about it now..
Though, if I ever have kids, that will be the first thing I tell them not to do…
February 17th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Yeah, there’s definitely some natural selection at play here. I didn’t know whether to think that these kids are turning away from crack and meth because the economy is so bad that they suddenly can’t afford a cheap high or they think that the whole death-by-overdose is passe. Let’s face it the old die-by-getting-shitfaced-and-wrap-the-car-around-a-telephone pole/tree/etc. has been done to death. I wondered if maybe these little shits thought they were too “cool” to get high the old fashion way until I read DirtyJerz’s post. That scenario struck me as homoerotic leading into autoerotic in some way.
Maybe the next Cracked article/list should be about stupid ways to get yourself accidentally killed. You could start with this poor slob:
“Man’s Body Found At Grand Canyon:Man Appears To Have Fallen 300 Feet, Rangers Say”
http://www.kpho.com/news/15324988/detail.html
He slipped and fell….into the friggin’ Grand Canyon.
PS: Thanks Hoy for the “Southern Comfort” flashback. Euurph. (I didn’t drink schnapps)
February 17th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I have 2 questions for DirtyJerz:
1. What kind of ‘action’ were you hoping to get on your 10th birthday?
2. Do I really want to know the answer to question 1?
February 17th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Probably something to do with getting so shitfaced on Cola and mentos, and be totally stupid with the dreamy dark haired guy in the corner.
By stupid I mean kiss on the cheek and giggle awkwardly.
Or have her friends perform a ‘wedding’.
February 17th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Oh, kids these days aren’t any more stupid that we were! Because they have the advanage of this little thing Al Gore created called the World Wide Web. With it, they’re able to surf around and learn about all the deep dark fetishes that adulthood has to offer (like Choking, and Hannah Montana) they just lack the facilities to correctly apply them (like Michael Hutchence). I say… Choke on! Little spawn! We need the space on this planet.
February 17th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
“Oh, kids these days aren’t any more stupid that we were!”
I’ll admit to that, I can run my hand along my head and feel all the bumps on my skull from the amount of times I took a whack to the head.
Also, I have an inch long scar on my arm where I split it open crawling through a barb-wire fence.
February 17th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
“The warning signs that your child might be playing this game include:
discussion of the game, including other terms for it;bloodshot eyes;marks on the neck;severe headaches;disorientation after spending time alone;ropes, scarves and belts tied to bedroom furniture or doorknobs or found knotted on the floor;unexplained presence of things like dog leashes, choke collars and bungee cords; ”
That could also be a sign that your kid has discovered your S/M toy stash.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:09 am
“Oh, kids these days aren’t any more stupid that we were!”
I remember hearing about these games when I was a kid and opted to go hunt down poisonous snakes instead. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but I’m still here and apparently a lot of those kids choking eachother aren’t.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
“…Though, if I ever have kids, that will be the first thing I tell them not to do…”
Please make sure that “don’t stick your toenails into the power outlets” also makes the top ten. That one wasn’t obvious to me, for some reason.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Way to go, Andy. Now the nation’s children will turn away from choking themselves and start sticking their protuberances into electrical sockets.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Just another product of the gay conspiracy.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
And the Jews
February 20th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Gays and Jews are choking our children?
Am I missing a paragraph somewhere?
February 20th, 2008 at 9:32 am
If those kids knew about weed, we would not have this problem.
February 20th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
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February 20th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
“Almost 96 percent of deaths for which sufficient detail was available occurred while the youth was alone, and 93 percent of parents said they were not aware of the game until their child died.”
That’s called ’suicide’, not my beloved Space Monkey.
February 21st, 2008 at 8:02 am
This was hilarious. Totally hilarious.
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
“If those kids knew about weed, we would not have this problem.” Amen.
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March 30th, 2008 at 3:22 am
I love you all if any one wants to choke me feel free… it’s just the magic of the land…
I say jump down the garbage dispose thingy and remember…
Egg only get laid once… and it’s with their mum.
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May 13th, 2008 at 10:59 am
One of the kids who died went to my school.
That was a depressing day.
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