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the endangered Child: 
Choking and Fainting games in the online underground oF 

youtube

elizAbeth tuCker

In 1987, a nine-year-old boy named Derek told a student fieldworker in 
Binghamton, New York, that he and his friends had taken turns putting a rope 
around their necks and pulling it tight, to see “who [could] choke himself the 
longest” (Tucker 2008, 79). Having expected to hear Derek speak about active 
but not life-threatening games, the student felt shocked and concerned. I also felt 
worried about Derek but knew that such games had been going on for years in 
the United Kingdom and the United States. In the late 1980s, choking and fainting 
games, as well as other games involving breath control, were not very familiar 
to the public. Iona and Peter Opie had identified fainting games as “misplaced 
audacity” in their book Children’s Games of Street and Playground (1969, 273-
74), but their documentation of the games had not caused widespread concern. 
Children and adolescents had identified choking and fainting games by so many 
different names (including Pass Out, Space Monkey, California Dreaming, Purple 
Dragon, and the Gasp Game), that it was hard for adults to identify the games’ 
purpose. Because of the childhood underground — a network of young people 
that adults did not usually enter — choking and fainting games took place in 
relative obscurity until the early twenty-first century, when media reports of 
accidental deaths of game-players became common.

In my article “‘Go to Bed, Now You’re Dead’: Suffocation Songs and Breath 
Control Games” (2008-2009), I examined choking and fainting games’ origins and 
interpretations of their meaning by folklorists, forensic pathologists, psychologists, 
and anthropologists; I also discussed adults’ educational websites and young 
people’s accounts of playing breath control games. In conclusion, I noted that 
playing these risky games seems to facilitate passage from childhood to adulthood 
and asked whether adults can persuade young people to stop playing such 
games (2008-2009, 54). Building from and expanding upon my previous work, 
this article analyzes adolescents’ and adults’ interaction based on videos about 
fainting and choking games posted on YouTube in an effort to interpret the 
meaning and impact of such broadcasts through the analysis of meta-information. 
By taking a close look at comments on videos uploaded by boys and girls, as well 
as comments on videos uploaded by adults, I interpret adolescents’ and adults’ 
interaction related to this important, difficult subject and explain why young 
people persist in posting their own videos in spite of parental opposition.

From the late 1990s to the middle of the twenty-first century, more and more 
people have become accustomed to communicating with each other on the 
Internet. An important change took place in 2005, when three young computer 
specialists activated the domain name “YouTube.com” (Snickars and Vonderau 
2010; Van Dijck 2013). Suddenly it became possible for kids aged thirteen and over 
(and many younger children as well) with access to the Internet to upload, share, 

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and view videos. Curious adolescents could upload videos of themselves playing 
games with friends and watch videos uploaded by others. YouTube gave kids a 
new kind of childhood underground in which they could share their traditions and 
interests with peers around the world.

This online childhood underground is porous because parents and other adults 
can attempt to check what kids are doing. Before the Internet made checking so 
easy, it was common for adults to let children learn and play games on their own. 
According to Brian Sutton-Smith’s concept of the “triviality barrier” (1970, 1-8), 
adults tend not to find children’s games and other forms of folklore very significant 
or useful for children’s development. There have, however, been good reasons 
for adults to try to learn all they can about choking and fainting games. Tragically, 
many preadolescents and adolescents have died while playing such games, and 
numerous reports of these fatalities have appeared in newspaper, television, and 
Internet articles (e.g. O’Sullivan 1999; Parker-Pope 2008; Warner 2005). Choking 
games involving ropes and chokeholds are high-risk; fainting games tend to be 
somewhat “safer” but can result in death from head injuries. More boys than girls 
have died as a result of choking games. The Center for Disease Control’s report of 
2008, based on news reports, explains that 86.6% of choking game deaths in the 
United States from 1995 to 2007 were males aged six to 19, with a mean age of 13.3 
years. Information about fatal falls resulting from fainting games is more difficult to 
find, but such information has gradually become available (e.g. Phillips 2014).

Without breathing, it is impossible to live. Understanding the peril of 
breath control games has contributed to adults’ awareness of young people’s 
vulnerability. The Columbine High School massacre in 1999, followed by a series 
of tragic school shootings culminating in the Newtown massacre in 2012, has 
enhanced American adults’ sense of children being in danger.1 When I wrote my 
article “Changing Concepts of Childhood” for the Journal of American Folklore in 
2012, I noted the significance of the “monstrous child” concept that emerged after 
the death of so many teenagers at the hands of fellow adolescents at Columbine 
High School. I also found that Carole Carpenter’s (2011) analysis of the “bubble-
wrapped child” conveyed adults’ worries about safety very well. Two years later, I 
find that the metaphor of “the endangered child” fits the impression of childhood 
that has come from both school shootings and fatal breath control games. 

Folklorists of childhood have a unique perspective; their close observation 
of children’s interaction and respect for children’s own rules result in significant 
perceptions. Since the Columbine High School massacre, these scholars have 
paid particular attention to the relationship between folklore and school violence. 
Simon J. Bronner has noted that since the publication of reports on school 
shootings in the 1990s, which have emphasized the fact that most shooters have 
been male, boys have seemed to be more at risk than girls; “much of their plight 
[has] seemed expressed or exacerbated by circulating folklore” (2011, 149). The 
higher percentage of males’ deaths after playing choking games fits this pattern, 
which should be studied closely. Careful consideration of YouTube videos and 
comments posted by viewers makes it possible for researchers to gain insight into 
young people’s performances and responses.

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Methodology and Numerical Results

Methodology for analyzing young people’s use of YouTube is still developing, 
since this medium of communication is relatively new. One good study of 
the performative use and function of YouTube videos is Anthony Buccitelli’s 
“Performance 2.0: Observations Toward a Theory of the Digital Performance 
of Folklore” (2013). Between September 26, 2013, and November 1, 2013, I did 
keyword searches on YouTube to find videos of breath control games, searching 
for “choking games,” “fainting games,” and “pass out games.” Through these 
searches I found 54 videos: 27 (50%) of all-male groups posted by boys, 16 (30%) 
of all-female groups posted by girls, and four (7%) of mixed groups posted by 
either boys or girls. There were also seven educational videos (13%) posted by 
adults. I took notes on the content of all 54 videos and recorded comments that 
had been made. In some cases there were numerous comments; in others there 
were none or very few. I also noted the gender and, if possible, the place of 
residence of the individual who posted the video. In some cases it was difficult 
to learn the age, gender, place of residence, and past experience of the people 
who posted comments. The tone and diction of many comments suggested that 
teenagers had posted them, but it was impossible to be certain. Some teenagers 
commented that they had “pranked” their younger brothers or sisters by making 
them play choking or fainting games while making videos. YouTube is supposed 
to be used only by people aged thirteen and older, but a close look at comments 
shows that children are sometimes involved as well.

My search for percentages of video generation was influenced by Martha 
Linkletter, Kevin Gordon, and Joe Dooley’s (2009) article, “The Choking Game and 
YouTube: A Dangerous Combination,” a significant medical study that points out 
the connection between watching videos online and playing games; it also notes 
that familiarity with videos posted online may deter some young people from 
playing.2 The study’s main goal is to describe demographics and techniques of the 
choking game; its methodology is retrospective content analysis. Noting that very 
little information on this subject exists in medical literature, the authors conclude: 
“There is no causal link between YouTube allowing increased access to videos and 
any increase in participation and increase in morbidity and mortality. It is possible 
that YouTube has merely allowed access to previously unobserved activity” (277). 
Linkletter, Gordon, and Dooley discovered that 90% of the participants in the 65 
videos they studied were male. In 55% of the videos, participants had hypoxic 
seizures, but the percentage of seizures went up when participants used the 
Valsalva maneuver, usually called the “sleeper hold,” in which one person puts an 
arm around the other’s neck and squeezes it. In 88% of those videos, there was 
a hypoxic seizure. Clearly, the level of danger rises when this kind of choking 
takes place.

In contrast to Linkletter, Gordon, and Dooley’s (2009) study, my own research 
— compiled three years later — shows a larger percentage of female participants 
and only one use of the Valsalva maneuver. In most of the videos I watched, 
children or adolescents lost consciousness after hyperventilating while squatting, 
then standing up and putting their thumbs in their mouths. This difference might 

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seem to indicate a major change in kids’ game-playing patterns since the study 
by Linkletter, Gordon, and Dooley, but it seems more likely that the difference in 
percentages results from YouTube having limited viewings of the most dangerous 
choking games during the past several years. Some videos that have been deemed 
inappropriate by YouTube can still be viewed. In the video “Cofer Passed Out” 
(2010), which I found in the fall of 2013, a late-adolescent boy uses the Valsalva 
maneuver to make a girl have what appears to be a hypoxic seizure. When I 
clicked on this video on July 28, 2014, I was able to watch it, although it was 
labeled with the message “This video has been removed because it violates 
YouTube’s terms of service.” Perhaps part of the content had been removed before 
I watched the video. According to YouTube’s Community Guidelines, any member 
of the YouTube community can flag a questionable video, and staff members 
work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to remove objectionable 
content (“Flagging Content” 2014). It is noteworthy that YouTube recommends, 
in its “Teen Safety” section, consideration of “The Grandma Rule”: if you don’t 
want your grandma to watch a video you have made, you should not post it. In 
this way, YouTube promotes standards that might be found in a family or a small 
community (“Teen Safety” 2014).

Reading young viewers’ comments on YouTube videos helps adults understand 
the impact of videos of the games on young people. But why do so many kids 
want to play these games? What questions and worries arise as they learn about 
the games and think about playing them themselves? Comments on videos 
show adults how children and adolescents react to the videos while engaging in 
dialogue with peers and adults.

Defiance, Dizziness, and Danger

Before examining the videos and comments, it is necessary to consider scholarship 
that puts them in the context of youth culture. Since the 1970s, folklorists have 
studied adolescents’ trips or quests to experience something amazing or shocking 
that has a connection to a legend (Dégh 2001, Ellis 1982-83, Meley 1991, Thigpen 
1971). Bill Ellis observes that when they visit legendary locations, teenagers seek 
“deliberate escapes into altered states of being where conventional laws do not 
operate” (2001, 189). This escape, Ellis explains, is part of a broader behavior 
pattern involving defiance of adults’ rules and drinking.3 When I was doing the 
research for my essay on breath control games in 2009, I found that the same 
general pattern applied. During breath control games kids seem to be “pushing 
each other to the brink of a seductive dream world … prob[ing] boundaries 
between conscious and unconscious awareness and between life and death” 
(Tucker 2008-2009, 54). This kind of experimentation is deeply embedded in 
youth culture and resists regulation by parents and teachers. Simon J. Bronner 
notes that adolescents tend to take risks and withdraw because of their “betwixt 
and between” stage of development, during which they may act both defiant and 
restrained (2014b). In a similar vein, Richard A. Friedman observes that although 
teens have an “enhanced capacity for anxiety,” they are also “novelty seekers and 
risk takers” (2014).

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Like legend trips or quests, breath control games offer new experiences and 
tests of courage before and during adolescence. Challenges can, of course, take 
many forms, but the French play scholar Roger Caillois’s (1961) study of ilinx 
play — the kind of play that produces dizziness and disorientation — helps us 
understand young people’s fascination with breath control. Both Caillois and 
Finnish play scholar Marjatta Kalliala (2007) note that children actively seek 
dizziness, lightheadedness, and related feelings. At amusement parks, young 
people line up to get dizzy on Tilt-a-Whirls and other rides. The popularity of 
such thrilling, disorienting rides, like the popularity of breath control games, 
never seems to wane. Caillois partially explains this phenomenon by comparing 
vertigo-seeking children with spinning sheep and tail-chasing dogs, but he does 
not explain why members of different species crave vertigo. Instead, he notes that 
both ilinx play and related spectacles appeal to the young because play is self-
rewarding and separate from daily life:

Essential is the pursuit of this special disorder or sudden panic, which 
defines the term vertigo, and in the true characteristics of the games 
associated with it: viz. the freedom to accept or refuse the experience, 
strict and fixed limits, and separation from the rest of reality. What the 
experience adds to the spectacle does not diminish but reinforces its 
character as play. (Caillois 1961, 26)

The key phrases here are “freedom to accept or refuse the experience” and 
“separation from the rest of reality.” We can apply Caillois’s analysis of ilinx play 
to the process of maturation during adolescence. Play’s creation of a different 
realm becomes especially valuable during this stage, when it becomes necessary 
for young people to pull away from their parents to establish independence. 
This process of separation involves both reliance on parents and resistance to 
parental control.4 If adolescents post videos of themselves playing breath control 
games, they take the risk of parental intervention, which may lead to unpleasant 
objections but may also bring parental attention that the adolescents want to 
receive. Those who post breath control videos show their peers that they have 
accepted a difficult, possibly dangerous challenge; they also show that they have 
gone beyond everyday reality to experience something thrilling, unusual, and 
bravely playful.

There is not much consideration of play’s rewards in the current folkloristic 
discussion of children’s endangerment and early death in mass and new media. 
This discourse, including the subject of school shootings, may encourage playful 
but dangerous performances on the Internet. Some adult viewers of YouTube 
videos express outrage and implore YouTube to remove a video because it sets a 
bad example. Both educational videos and comments by concerned adults have 
potential value, but it is not unusual for young viewers to reject them. While some 
kids express horror and sadness about negative consequences of choking and 
fainting games, others make snide or humorous comments that suggest opposition 
to adults’ guidance. Recently it has become apparent that some teenagers who 
do not like adults’ interference on YouTube are sending their videos to Instagram 

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instead (Bronner 2014a). Choosing a new site is one of many ways in which 
young people can keep adults from viewing their communications. danah boyd’s 
term “social stenography,” which refers to teenagers’ interpersonal encryption, fits 
this situation well (boyd 2014).

Adults’ Educational Videos

Educational videos made by adults comprised only 16% of the choking and 
fainting game videos I found on YouTube in the fall of 2013, but comments 
suggested that many kids had also watched them. In my study of educational 
websites about choking games in 2008, I found that such websites typically 
presented personal testimony from parents who had lost children, as well as 
information about the games’ extreme risk (Tucker 2008-2009, 50-52). The seven 
videos on choking and fainting games uploaded by adults that I found in this 
recent study also contain parents’ testimonies and information about risk. In 
addition, they emphasize testimony from young people who have lost friends or 
relatives and want to warn their peers not to experiment with the game.

An example of videos of this kind is “Survivors of the Choking Game,” 
uploaded February 8, 2010. With a shocking profile photo of a child lying in 
a hospital bed breathing through a respirator, this short (3 minute, 44 second) 
video has drawn many viewers; 300,509 people had watched it by July 27, 2014. 
Consisting of quotes, images, and video clips accompanied by suspenseful music, 
the video delivers a strong message: choking games can cause brain damage, and 
brain damage may be irreversible. The video clips of young teenagers struggling 
through therapy after playing the choking game convey this message powerfully. 
Comments indicate a broad range of responses: appreciation of the warning, 
eagerness to warn others, skepticism, and interest in playing choking games. 
Missy, a teenaged girl, writes “Thank you for taking the time to help someone.” 
Another teenaged girl, Erica, comments, “I did it don’t do the after symptoms 
aren’t fun. DON’T DO IT! Nykro, whose gender is unclear, writes “my class mate 
‘friend’ almost died of this shit ‘choking game,’ so guys please trust the rules and 
live longer.” All of these comments express concern and a desire to help other 
young people stay safe.5

In contrast to these responses, several teenagers question the truth of the 
information in the video. Brad, a teenaged boy, writes, “OK so this video makes 
no sense at all. There is no proof that any of these children received their injuries 
from it.” Similarly, “Whammy” (gender unclear) asks, “is this real?” and “Jesting” 
(gender unclear) comments, “This video sucks. It’s misleading.” Suspicious of 
warnings from adults, these three young people reject the video’s message.

Many young commenters on the video support playing choking games and 
describe their own experiences in a positive way. Kelly, a teenaged girl, writes, “I 
did it, and I’m fine! Just hurt my nose a little bit. The vids up on my challenge.” 
Similarly, Julius, a teenaged boy, comments, “This is bullshit. I’ve done it a 
hundred times and never gotten hurt.” Sara, a teenaged girl, goes a step farther, 
explaining why she enjoys playing choking games: “its really addicting, you guys 
don’t know the amazing feeling it brings unless you try it.” Brian, a teenaged 

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boy, offers vivid details: “did this shit and my vision was shaking + it was like 
I was reborn like a new me, all the birds and light and sounds. THIS SHIT 
GOOOOOO00D.” His comment shows that, like some takers of hallucinogenic 
drugs, teenagers playing choking games may feel that they have entered a new 
world full of enchanting sensations.

One of the most significant aspects of this video’s comment section is the 
interaction between teenagers and adults (see Appendix). When Sandra, a 
teenaged girl, says that the pictures of choking game survivors in the video do not 
look real, two adults, Bob and Neecy, assure her that she is wrong. Bob expresses 
himself angrily, telling Sandra that she has “shit for brains,” but Neecy calmly and 
authoritatively observes that she knows the parents of the teenagers whose images 
appear in the video and that her own son died after playing the choking game. 
After reading Bob’s angry comment, Sandra retorts, “And who are you to judge 
me?” She does not object to Neecy’s more gentle and reasonable comment. Maybe 
she has stopped questioning the video’s veracity, or maybe she does not want to 
engage in further dialogue with an adult who proves her wrong.

Throughout these comments and the comments on many other breath control 
game videos, we become aware that issues related to belief and non-belief are 
generating lively debate. Are choking and fainting games real, and are videos 
about such games based upon true information? Linda Dégh and Andrew Vázsonyi 
(1973) argue that both belief and skepticism keep legends alive. Comments on 
choking and fainting game videos display a similar dynamic, in which teenaged 
skeptics engage other teens and adults in lively, sometimes acrimonious dialogue.

Boys’ Videos

While viewing boys’ and girls’ videos in the fall of 2013, I discovered a contrast 
in settings. Most of the boys’ videos were filmed outdoors, in the back yards of 
private homes or on playing fields, while most of the girls’ videos were filmed 
in bedrooms of private homes. This contrast fits previously observed patterns of 
American teenaged girls’ and boys’ social interaction: girls are much more likely 
than boys to have “sleepovers” at which they eat junk food, play exciting games, 
watch movies, and stay up all night talking (Tucker 2007-2008). Teenaged boys 
also stay overnight at each other’s houses, but the “sleepover” tradition is more 
formularized among teenaged girls.

Among the boys’ videos that I watched, two, “Choke Rope” and “Fainting 
game!!!,” are especially revealing. “Choke Rope” was removed from YouTube 
between the fall of 2013 and the summer of 2014, and “Fainting game!!!” 
was flagged on July 29, 2014. Because both of these videos are part of the 
argumentation on choking and fainting games that has been taking place in the 
YouTube community, I use them as examples here.

“Choke Rope” is a parody of adults’ educational videos. It was posted on 
September 21, 2011, by Adam, a teenaged boy, and had been viewed by 464 
people when I took a close look at it. “Choke Rope” shows two early adolescent 
boys horsing around with a rope in their backyard. The video’s soundtrack is 
garbled, but that problem does not become evident until a person starts watching. 

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Its cleverly assonantal title suggests the possibility of both humor and violence. 
The two boys give their video a facetious tone, saying with exaggerated strictness, 
“Warning: do not try this at home!” and outlining steps that viewers should take 
to choke each other with a rope. Mocking serious educational videos, they shove 
each other, knock each other down, and go indoors, then outdoors again. They 
enjoy themselves hugely and expend much energy throughout the film.

The two boys’ video has serious content, however. Throughout their one-
minute, four-second performance, they toss around a rope, at one end of which 
they have made a noose. When they go inside the house, they enter a closet, and 
one of the boys puts his wrist into the noose. Both the choice of the closet as a 
location and the placement of a wrist in the noose show the boys’ awareness of 
hanging games in closets and other enclosed spaces. At the end of the video, one 
boy places the noose around the other’s neck, and both stare into the camera. The 
absence of words here has its own kind of eloquence. Have the two boys played 
hanging games with ropes, or are they thinking of doing so? We do not know, but 
the video certainly brings those possibilities to mind.

The two boys’ video received no comments at all: no applause, no criticism, no 
questions. Nothing in the video raises the question of “true or fake?” and nothing 
seems terribly alarming. The fact that 464 people watched the video and nobody 
chose to comment through early November of 2013 shows that it had not yet 
become part of the dialogue on dangerous play at that point in time. Between 
November of 2013 and July of 2014, the video was removed from YouTube. Its 
removal suggests that someone flagged the video because its content seemed 
inappropriate for young viewers. Although I have not found specific information 
about the video’s removal, it seems likely that it disappeared from YouTube 
because a staff member or a viewer questioned the appropriateness of its content.

The second boys’ video, “Fainting game!!!,” was flagged for inappropriate 
content on July 29, 2014. Its poster was League City Stunts, a group that films 
“all types of things, from 4wheeling to rolling people down hills in tires.” The 
video was uploaded on May 30, 2013, and had been viewed 314 times as of 
November 1, 2013. By July 25, 2014, the number of viewers had risen to 2,620. 
This brief, 59-second video is typical of short fainting game videos made by 
boys. Four adolescent boys stand on a playing field, laughing and pushing each 
other. Two of them start to play the fainting game, first squatting on the ground 
and hyperventilating, then standing up and putting their thumbs in their mouths. 
Two other boys, one of whom looks older than the others, serve as spotters, 
supervising the two boys who are playing. The two players collapse, seeming to 
have lost consciousness, and the others laugh. The video ends shortly afterwards.

Comments on this video show why it was removed from YouTube (see 
Appendix). The first few comments indicate amusement; one commenter pokes 
fun at the legs of one of the boys. On July 29, however, Adriana, who appears to 
be a teenaged girl, comments, “You know you can die from playing this game or 
end up brain damaged.” Shortly after her comment, “Music Lover” (age and gender 
unclear) writes, “Y’all finna [fixing to] die.” The following day, the video appears 
with a prompt: “This video has been age-restricted based on our Community 
Guidelines.” It is possible for viewers who can confirm their age to view the video, 

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but others are not allowed to see it. This restriction demonstrates responsiveness 
to viewers’ concerns, which is a key aspect of YouTube’s ground rules. Since the 
fall of 2013, there have been increasing restrictions and removals of videos that 
clearly display choking and fainting games.

Girls’ Videos

From the many available videos of fainting games created by adolescent girls, I 
have chosen to examine two: “Pass Out Game- Mikala and Madison,” posted on 
June 21, 2013, and viewed 12,181 times by September 27, 2013, and “Faint game,” 
posted on October 13, 2012 and viewed 1,726 times by July 28, 2014. Teenaged 
female video-makers made both films in their bedrooms, with other girls present. 

“Pass Out Game — Mikala and Madison” shows five teenaged girls taking turns 
hyperventilating and passing out in a bedroom. The girls stand against a wall next 
to a bed. When they fall, they collapse onto an array of colorful pillows. They 
seem both excited and nervous as they perform for their friends and the larger 
audience of YouTube. The first comment on this video is part of a pattern that is, 
unfortunately, common on the Internet: men ogling teenaged girls and trying to 
get their attention. This comment, “Well I think you are both really cute with sexy 
legs!” comes from a male who self-identifies as “Steve from London”; he cautions 
the girls to “play safe,” adopting a quasi-parental tone. Steve writes “thanks for 
the uploads,” showing that he enjoys watching pretty girls faint; on breath control 
videos and others, such responses are fairly common. Comments two through six 
— questions and compliments — are also typical of comments on YouTube videos 
of fainting and choking games. 

In the sixth comment, however, the young male writer, “Go Pro Hero,” explains 
that, because he thought the game was “bullshit,” he “just tried it,” passed out, and 
woke up screaming. Although he ends his comment with the abbreviation “lol,” 
he sounds shaken up. Is he really upset after trying the fainting game, or is he 
pretending to participate in the game to develop rapport with the individual who 
uploaded the video? It is not possible to know what he did or did not do, but it is 
significant that this male commenter wants to find out whether the game is “real” 
or “bullshit.” The “real or fake” question, commonly expressed by young people 
on YouTube, arises often in comments on fainting and choking game videos. 
Debate about what is real and what is fake fuels discussion of performances of 
these games, as in the dialectics of the legend (Dégh and Vázsonyi 1973).

After Go Pro Hero’s comment, other writers criticize the game and the girls: 
“Fucking Idiots,” “you are killing a ton of brain cells,” and “DON’T IT CAN KILL 
YOU.” In comment 12, Caitlin, who self-identifies as an adolescent girl, writes, 
“Please tell me how to do this!!” Undeterred by the three previous writers’ negative 
remarks, she seems eager to try the game herself. Like the ancient Greek Pandora, 
who cannot resist opening her box of troubles, Caitlin seems irresistibly drawn to 
the strange sensations caused by fainting games, as do the creators of the video, 
Mikala and Madison.

In late September of 2013, when I found Mikala and Madison’s video, the video 
had not yet been flagged. By the summer of 2014, however, it was apparent that 

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Mikala was trying to evade family opposition. Her video “Passout game — Mikala 
and Madison” had disappeared from the Internet, and she had posted three 
sections of the video with different titles. In mid-July, a comment appeared on 
“Pass out Game — 2 Mikala and Madison”: “Reported a bunch of these btw, you 
really have been bad. Granddad.” This sounded like the end of Mikala’s subversive 
fun. Nonetheless, it was still possible for anyone to view all three fainting game 
videos through the end of July.

The second girls’ video, “Fainting game,” comes from Hayley, who introduces 
her video with the apprehensive comment “If you are going to pist [post] 
comments telling me its bad then go fuck yourself.” Her brief, 30-second video 
shows her or a friend hyperventilating, then collapsing while standing against a 
bedroom wall. The viewer hears laughter and then, after the girl’s collapse, the 
words “Wakey-wakey!” This is a typically short video from girls in a bedroom with 
a closed door, who are maintaining their privacy from parents and siblings while 
sharing their adventures with a wide audience of young and older viewers on 
YouTube.

Although Hayley expresses worry about receiving critical comments, she gets 
compliments and friendly questions from viewers of her video (see Appendix). 
“Steve from London,” who complimented Mikala and Madison on their fainting 
game, tells Hayley, “Well I think you are gorgeous!” Claiming to have experienced 
“déjà vu” after playing a fainting game, he asks her whether she has had the 
same sensation. Answering that she felt as if she were dreaming and does not 
think that Steve is “creepy at all,” she seems receptive to his overtures. Another 
commenter, Hizzy, asks, “you got a boyfriend?” Answering “no lol,” Hayley seems 
to like his question. Both Steve’s and Hizzy’s questions suggest that they would 
like to get closer to Hayley, and her responses do not discourage their interest. 
She self-presents as a young woman who has had little experience with men, and, 
unlike Mikala, she has not had relatives intervene by contacting YouTube. In the 
ambiguous realm of the Internet, this is one kind of peril of which parents need to 
be aware.

Choking and fainting games give young people exciting but nerve-wracking 
chances to test their bravery. The urge to do something risky, thrilling, and 
heroic is hard to resist, even (or especially) when pressure from adults provides 
a deterrent. Becoming dizzy, feeling disoriented, and experiencing a briefly 
altered state of consciousness has a strong appeal to young people on the cusp 
of adolescence. This experience helps young people feel brave and resilient; they 
have accepted a difficult, possibly life-threatening challenge and returned from 
an alternate state of consciousness that seems like another world. Not all kids 
accept this challenge, of course; some agree with adults that the games are too 
dangerous. But for those who do, performance of breath control games for peers, 
in defiance of adults’ rules, demonstrates strength of mind and determination. 
Worried parents want to stop the games so that their kids can stay safe and grow 
up to be responsible adults. Both parents and their offspring value progress 
toward adulthood, but they tend to have different ideas about how to achieve it. 
In the dynamic performance arena of YouTube, new videos appear every day. 
Comments on new and older videos reveal concern about truth and fakery, as well 

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as safety and danger. Viewers who object to particular videos can ask YouTube 
staff members to remove them. Although YouTube’s community guidance system 
has placed viewer-based limits upon some videos, it has not stopped kids from 
posting new videos that they want to share with others. As the discourse on safety 
and endangerment continues, we should remember that young people feel a need 
to demonstrate their courage and that many of them find enormous satisfaction in 
peer-based video-sharing.

NOTES

Many thanks to Simon J. Bronner and Trevor J. Blank for reading an earlier draft of 
this essay and sharing their insights, which I greatly appreciate. I especially want 
to thank Simon J. Bronner for his very helpful suggestions regarding adolescents’ 
engagement with adults as they move toward maturity. I also want to thank Trevor 
J. Blank very much for his very perceptive, constructive suggestions. I presented a 
shorter version of this essay at the American Folklore Society’s annual meeting in 
the fall of 2013.

1. On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children 
and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Soon 
afterwards he committed suicide. Shocked by the massacre of so many children 
and adults, Americans questioned gun control laws and other aspects of this tragic 
occurrence.

2. There is no mention in this article of folklorists’ studies of choking games 
from 1969 to 2009, although the authors note fourteen folk terms for choking 
games in English and one folk term in Spanish, intento desmayo. The authors 
cite an early study of fainting and choking games in the British Medical Journal: 
Howard, Leathart, Dornhurst, and Sharpey-Schafer’s “The ‘Mess Trick’ and the 
‘Fainting Lark,’” which was published in 1951.

3. Scholars outside the field of folklore have examined children’s and 
adolescents’ rebellion from a number of perspectives. An analysis of childhood 
that contrasts adults’ sheltering and spoiling of children with children’s desire to 
rebel is historian Gary Cross’s The Cute and the Cool: Wondrous Innocence and 
Modern American Children’s Culture (2004).

4. See Roger D. Abrahams’s Deep Down in the Jungle (2006 [1970]) for an 
insightful study of young men’s defense and criticism of their mothers while 
playing the “Dozens” in urban Philadelphia.

5. Because YouTube videos are public documents, I have included links 
to videos that can be viewed online. In this article, for the sake of preserving 
individuals’ privacy, I use first names only and do not identify full screennames. 
All YouTube comments are presented in their original form, without correction of 
spelling or syntax.

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WORKS CITED

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Folklore from the Streets of Philadelphia. New York: Aldine Transaction.

boyd, danah. 2014. It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. New 
Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Bronner, Simon J. 2011. Framing Violence and Play in American Culture. Journal of 
Ritsumeikan Social Sciences and Humanities 3: 145-160.

______. 2014a. Email communication. August 4.
______. 2014b. Email communication. August 11.
Buccitelli, Anthony Bak. 2013. Performance 2.0: Observations Toward a Theory of 

the Digital Performance of Folklore. In Folk Culture in the Digital Age: The 
Emergent Dynamics of Human Interaction, ed. Trevor J. Blank. Logan: Utah 
State University Press, 60-84.

Caillois, Roger. 1961. Man, Play and Games. New York: Free Press.
Carpenter, Carole H. 2011. Why Children’s Studies? Center for Research in Young 

People’s Texts and Cultures. http://crytc.uwinnipeg.ca/pdf/papers/Carole.
Carpenter.pdf. 

Choke Rope. 2011. Posted by Adam. YouTube. 21 September. No URL available 
because of removal from site.

Cofer Passed Out. 2010. Posted by Kevin. YouTube. 25 January. http://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=Ah0WN9JFI18.

Conrad, JoAnn. 2002. The War on Youth: A Modern Oedipal Tragedy. Children’s 
Folklore Review 24 (1-2): 33-42.

Cross, Gary. 2004. The Cute and the Cool: Wondrous Innocence and Modern 
American Children’s Culture. Oxford and New York: Oxford University 
Press.

Dégh, Linda and Andrew Vázsonyi. 1973. Dialectics of the Legend. Bloomington, 
IN: Folklore Publications Group.

______. 2001. Legend and Belief. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Ellis, Bill. 1982-83. Legend Tripping in Ohio: A Behavioral Study. In Papers in 

Comparative Studies, Vol. 2, eds. Daniel Barnes, Rosemary O. Joyce, and 
Steven Swann Jones, 61-73. Columbus, OH: Center for Comparative Studies 
in the Humanities.

______. 2003. Aliens, Ghosts and Cults: Legends We Live. Jackson: University Press 
of Mississippi.

Fainting game. 2012. Posted by Hayley. 13 October. YouTube. http://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=W4nvdz67H4M.

Fainting game!!! 2013. Posted by League City Stunts. 30 May. YouTube. http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWDjc1KFRg8.

Flagging Content. 2014. YouTube. https://support.google.com/youtube/
answer/2802027.

Friedman, Richard A. 2014. Why Teenagers Act Crazy. Sunday Review, New York 
Times. 28 June. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/opinion/sunday/why-
teenagers-act-crazy.html?_r=0.

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Howard, P., Leathart, G.L., Dornhorst, A.C., and Sharpey-Schafer, E.P. 1951. The 
‘Mess Trick’ and the ‘Fainting Lark.’ British Medical Journal 2: 382-384.

Kalliala, Marjatta. 2006. Play Culture in a Changing World. Maidenhead, UK: Open 
University Press.

Linkletter, Martha, Kevin Gordon and Joe Dooley. 2009. The Choking Game and 
YouTube: A Dangerous Combination. Clinical Pediatrics 49 (3): 274-279.

Meley, Patricia. 1991. Adolescent Legend Trips as Teenage Cultural Response: A 
Study of Lore in Context. Children’s Folklore Review 14: 5-24.

Opie, Iona and Peter. 1969. Children’s Games of Street and Playground. New York: 
Oxford University Press.

O’Sullivan, Jack. 1999. So You Still Want to Send the Kids to Boarding School? The 
Independent. 18 March. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/
so-you-still-want-to-send-the-kids-to-boarding-school-1081328.html (accessed 
August 9, 2009).

Parker-Pope, Tara. 2008. ‘Choking’ Game Deaths on the Rise. NYTimes.com. 14 
February. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/

Pass out Game- 2 Madison & Mikala. 2013. Posted by Mikala. YouTube. 21 June. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BETK0u5Qhl4.

Passout Game — Mikala and Madison. 2013. Posted by Mikala. YouTube. 21 June. 
No URL available because of removal from site.

Phillips, Anne. 2014. Hyperventilation — A Deadly Game. Jeff Orchard, University 
of Waterloo. 10 October. https://cs.waterloo.ca/~jorchard/Mike/mike.html

Snickars, Pelle and Patrick Vonderau. 2010. The YouTube Reader. Stockholm: 
National Library of Sweden.

Sutton-Smith, Brian. 1970. Psychology of Childlore: The Triviality Barrier. Western 
Folklore 29 (1): 1-8.

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Indiana Folklore 4 (2): 141-215.

Tucker, Elizabeth. 2012. Changing Concepts of Childhood: Children’s Folklore 
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(498): 389-410.

______. 2008-2009. “Go to Bed, Now You’re Dead”: Suffocation Songs and Breath 
Control Games. Children’s Folklore Review 31: 45-58.

______. 2007. Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses. Jackson: 
University Press of Mississippi.

______. 2007-2008. Levitation Revisited. Children’s Folklore Review 30: 47-60.
Unintentional Strangulation Deaths from the ‘Choking Game’ Among Youths 

Aged 6-19 Years — United States, 1995-2007. 2008. MMWR Weekly, Center 
for Disease Control. 15 February. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/
mmwrhtml/mm5706a1.htm.

Van Dijk, Jose. 2013. The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social 
Media. London: Oxford University Press.

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Warner, Paul M. 2005. “Choking Game” Claims Life of One California Teenager. 
Canyon News. 7 August. http://www.canyon-news.com/artman/publish/
article_3310.php (accessed August 7, 2009).

APPENDIX

Excerpt from comments on YouTube video “Survivors of the Choking Game,” 
uploaded Feb. 8, 2010 by Carrie (300,509 views by July 27, 2014):

1.  Sandra: Omg...people seriously? You believe that all teenagers from 
this video died? And their show pictures of them?? Really?? Okay i 
believe that someone diedt from that “game” and im really sorry for 
their parents but i really don’t believe that the pictures of children 
who died are real.. you really think that some adults or teenager 
would go to the hospital and take a picture or video of survives.. 
no i don’t think so.. no hates is just teenage girl opinion, don’t 
believe her because all teenagers are stupid. 

2.  Bob: Well you’re certainly not helping people think any more 
highly of teenagers, I mean maybe you should work on being able 
to post comments that don’t make you look like you have shit for 
brains.

3.  Sandra: And who are you to judge me?
4. Neecy: They are real kids ..... how can you say this is fake? She has 

permission from all these kids parents to use this material because 
it really happened. I know these parents and can say it is 100% 
real and kids die. My 13 year old died from it as many others have. 
Educate yourself and do your research if you have any doubts.

Comments on YouTube video “Fainting game!!!,” uploaded May 30, 2013 by 
League City Stunts (314 views as of November 1, 2013):

1. Nicholas: hahahahahahaha!!!!!!!
2. Connor Look at those calves on the white kid!
3. Connor: Your welcome
4. Adriana: You know you can die playing this game or end up brain 

damaged.
4. Music Lover: Y’all finna die.

Comments on YouTube video “Passout Game- Mikala and Madison,” uploaded 
June 21, 2013 by Mikala (12,181 views as of 9-27-2013):

1. Steve: Well I think you are both really cute with sexy legs! Did you 
feel déjà vu when you came round? I used too. Anyway, play safe 
and thanks for the uploads. Steve from London

2. Mikala: Lol thanks!!!!
3. Mojave: Why did she fall so hard?

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4. Adrian: What’s your guy’s twitter/Instagram?
5. Johanna: Cool T-shirt J
6. Go Pro Hero: Well I thought for sure this was bullshit never 

believed the game was real … I just tried it, bend down breathed 
hard for half a minute, and stood up and breathed on my thumb. 
My dogs were pushing me and I passed out I guess, because I 
woke up screaming what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck 
with a big pain in my back. Landed on a Gopro case:/ that was 
terrifying lol

7. Mikala.: adrian it’s @smoking********
8. Mikala: And I know go pro. It’s I cool aft ho
9. Jonathan: Fucking Idiots
10. Gentrit.: Well, for starters you are killing a ton of brain cells when 

you do stuff like that. And I am convinced it’s more noticeable 
because people who play this game already have fewer brain cells 
than average.

11. Dark: DONT IT CAN KILL YOU
12. Caitlin: Please tell me how to do this!!
13. Dark: whats crazy is she is having a seizure
14. Trinity: She fell hard
15. Savanna: the girl that fell last with the cool story bro shirt on or 

whatever she faked it well at least it looked like she did
16. Garrett: Yo tell that girl in the white to hmu?
17. Morgan: The cool story shirt fake ass
18. Jzone: because getting drunk is too much work
19. Theo: get rekt

Excerpt from comments on the YouTube video ““Fainting game,” uploaded 
October 13, 2012 by Hayley (1,191 viewers by July 30, 2014)

1. Hizzy: ok lol you do it to your mates then, you got a boyfriend?
2. Super: How to do it
3. Hayley: hizzy no lol me and my step sister used to it when we 

were about 13 so there is some old vids from then. Im 17 now then 
remembered about it so we were bored one night and decided not 
to do it again :/ 

4. Steve: Wow, you were out cold. Did you feel déjà vu when you 
came round? I used to when I did this. Great upload, thanks. Just 
play safe if you haven’t got anyone to catch you. I concussed 
myself one time! Anyway, I think your sexy, not Bering creepy, just 
an observation. Take care Steve from London

5. Hayley: Haha I know! No I didn’t feel Deja Vu, but I do remember 
dreaming but I couldn’t remember what about. Like when you wake 
up and you know you were just dreaming but you forgot. And oh 
dear lol I have never concussed myself although I did one time fall 
forward and nearly broke my nose haah. No not creepy at all lol

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