Bird Box Challenge: Netflix Warns Don’t Do This at Home
Susanne Bier and Netflix’s Bird Box has turned out to be the unexpected feel-bad movie of the holiday season. A film about an apocalyptic setting where unseen monsters will cause you to commit suicide simply by making eye contact, the film essentially presents its harrowing survival tale blindfolded. At least that’s the case for its heroine, Sandra Bullock’s Malorie. Forced to transport her two children, one named only Boy and the other simply Girl, across country and down a white river rapid while they’re all blindfolded, their nightmare made for thrilling binging for many Netflix subscribers… perhaps too much so.
Indeed, less than a week after the “Bird Box Challenge” became a viral thing, Netflix is reaching out online to ask subscribers to pump the crazy brakes, lest viewers also end up inadvertently killing themselves like so many characters in the new original film.
“Can’t believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THE BIRD BOX CHALLENGE,” tweeted the official Netflix Twitter account. “We don’t know how this started, and we appreciate the love, but Boy and Girl have just one wish for 2019, and it is that you not end up in the hospital due to memes.”
For those not hip to the latest Film Twitter memes, the Bird Box Challenge went viral after three friends did the challenge by blindfolding themselves for 24 hours. The video has already been seen by more than 2 million people since being uploaded on Dec. 30 and has spawned countless copycats, including folks cutting their own hair on Twitter, applying makeup, weightlifting, and running their own children into walls.
Bird Box is Netflix’s most popular original film release to date, as of last week having been viewed by more than 45 million accounts. That number has likely grown… as has the number of folks who’ve looked into the eye of madness.
further reading: Bird Box Ending Explained
David Crow is the Film Section Editor at Den of Geek. He’s also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. Read more of his work here. You can follow him on Twitter @DCrowsNest.
