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" After a month of fear-mongering in the British tabloids, a wacky and dangerous new drinking game is now sweeping across the U.S. It&amp;#039;s called &amp;quot;neknominate&amp;quot; and it is awful \u2014 a cross between a chain letter and the wildest &amp;quot;Truth or Dare&amp;quot; dares you can imagine. Here&amp;#039;s all you need to know, and why you should always turn down a &amp;quot;neknomination.&amp;quot; You really should. While it&amp;#039;s been widely reported to have Australian origins, &amp;quot;neknominate&amp;quot; comes from the U.K. Specifically, from Ross Samson, a British rugby player who posted a video of himself downing a drink in one gulp last Christmas Day \u2014 challenging his friends to do the same. (Though other Brits tweeted about the concept before Samson, it was his clip that went viral.) In light of the deaths and generally dangerous stunts being performed all over, though, Samson now says it&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;gone too far&amp;quot; and that he &amp;quot;rather not be attached to it in any way any more.&amp;quot; So from those humble beginnings, the &amp;quot;neknominate&amp;quot; rules were set: A player drinks a pint (originally of beer) in one go, because British slang for that is &amp;quot;necking&amp;quot; your drink. With that done, they &amp;quot;neknominate&amp;quot; friends and/or people they secretly hate and thus want to see make an ass of themselves to do the same, but in more &amp;quot;extreme&amp;quot; circumstances. Video proof is needed at each stage to confirm that a nomination has been successfully accepted and, crucially, acted upon within 24 hours of nomination. People who turn down their &amp;quot;neknomination&amp;quot; risk ridicule online.  The game soon spiralled out of control. Beers and alcoholic drinks of lower potency were soon replaced with spirits and liquors \u2014 often risky cocktails of the latter. And the stunts pulled by people passing on their &amp;quot;neknomination&amp;quot; soon grew to ridiculous proportions \u2014 videos of drunk people acting dumb are always likely to go viral, after all. As early as mid-January, crazy videos were being uploaded to YouTube: One player rode a horse into a supermarket before downing her drink; another also went to a supermarket and then stripped down to her underwear. One man swallowed a goldfish (though later claimed he spat it back out after the camera panned away). Oh, and another guy really did swallow goldfish, three of them, in a drink made up of &amp;quot;cider, raw eggs, engine oil and his own urine. HIS OWN URINE. I just can&amp;#039;t.  More horror stories still include the following: &amp;quot;One Northern Irish man ... [was] filmed slicing the head off a bird, swallowing a live goldfish in a pint of gin and jumping off a cliff into the sea. He has since said he regretted the three-minute clip.&amp;quot; \u2014 Daily Telegraph  &amp;quot;One young man drank... a pint of vodka and a pint of mouthwash before eating a raw egg and snorting a line of protein shake powder.&amp;quot; \u2014 regional British news &amp;quot;A boy of 10 was filmed downing a sickening concoction of Nando&amp;#039;s sauce, cream, mayonnaise and vodka after a dare.&amp;quot; \u2014 Yahoo UK And here&amp;#039;s a video from the Neknominate Videos Facebook page \u2014 founded at the beginning of February, nearly 9,000 likes already \u2014 just in case you weren&amp;#039;t sure this was all for real: Post by Robbie Ryder. P.S. One British parent shamed their son after he played the game by sharing a photo of him covered in his own vomit on Facebook. It went viral.  Talk about peer pressure. Even if you are smart enough to not participate, you are likely to be bullied online for chickening out after the 24-hour nomination period closes. While you are able to physically untag yourself from the post and nomination, your name remains in the video posted and very well could end up on the Neknominate Facebook page itself. Few are beginning to take a stand to the ridiculousness, posting  positive NekNominate videos and receiving support. At least five people have died. One after jumping into a river, another after drinking a mix of &amp;quot;wine, whisky, vodka and lager.&amp;quot; And authorities are concerned: Two Canadian teens face charges after posting videos that violate underage drinking laws. But the game continues to grow in popularity on the internet. Combined, the videos of those who have died garnered more than  700,000 hits. People are starting to demand that  Facebook take responsibility for this shitstorm, which is only gaining momentum. Facebook claimed in a statement there is not much they can do, though: &amp;quot;We do not tolerate content which is directly harmful, for example bullying, but behavior which some people may find offensive or controversial is not always necessarily against our rules. We encourage people to report things to us which they feel breaks our rules so we can review and take action on a case by case basis.&amp;quot; Follow Alex on Twitter. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/advice/a5761/neknominate-dangerous-drinking-game/?src=rss>