History buffs will recall "running the gauntlet", a brutal form of corporal punishment in which the guilty party would be made to run through a line of soldiers, who would strike at them with rods and whips as they passed.
Well. There's no buttering up this one. Teenagers stand in two rows, holding their backpacks (or school bags) and then one of them must run through the line as the bags are thrown at them. The point is to make it as difficult as possible for the runner, so the bag must be heavy. Think of all the laptops, tablets, schoolbooks, skhaftins and everything else you buy your school-going teen. Youths!
#backpackchallenge smh... pic.twitter.com/2wC9rMWksn
— jam🍭 (@Jamalaya_) February 7, 2017
"It's just for fun," one of these reckless youths told Buzzfeed News. "There's no rhyme or reason to it."
Of course not. When have teens ever made sense?
"The Backpack Challenge is not an entirely new concept. It first popped off on Twitter a few months ago, but it wasn't until it got a rebranding from #BookBagChallenge to #BackPackChallenge that it really stuck among teens," said Buzzfeed.