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Netflix has issued a warning to its customers thanks to a meme challenge that has gone viral in which people are choosing to put blindfolds on and navigate the world around them just like the characters in the horror movie “Bird Box.”
[...] For those who spent the holidays visiting friends and not watching Netflix, here’s a quick summary. Netflix released a horror concept movie called Bird Box starring Sandra Bullock. In Bird Box, Bullock and her children, Boy and Girl, are forced to wear blindfolds and navigate a river and spooky forest to protect themselves against the evil monster that, if seen, causes people to kill themselves.
The movie not only broke viewership records, it inspired a bevy of #BirdBoxChallenge memes, including ones in which folks record themselves blindfolded and attempting to do complete tasks, many of which are depicted in the movie.
Can’t believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE. 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.
— Netflix US (@netflix) January 2, 2019
Of course, these videos aren’t staying tucked away. They’re being shared with the world on social media. One viral meme shows a blindfolded family paddling away in their bathtub. Another shows a family running through their living room and one managing to hit the wall instead. There are numerous videos of random people walking blindfolded in cities like New York because sure, why not. One person put a hat over his head while driving.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/02/netflix-pleads-with-people-to-stop-doing-the-bird-box-challenge/
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Tara Li on Friday January 04 2019, @03:27PM
If done in a more controlled way, this might give more people more appreciation for the lives of blind people. I'd actually like to see time spent in schools with children learning to navigate blindfolded, and some of the associated skills such as reading braille, and with children learning to handle being deafened, learning some of the basics of sign language, even if it's simply finger-spelling (slow, and not nearly as fluid as full sign language, but takes much less time). Learning alternate modes of communication, including finger spelling, Morse code, and foreign languages, would help people learn to think more flexibly, I believe.