Spot of fun or dangerous drinking game?

A controversial but popular online drinking game has made its way to Bermuda’s shores.

Neknominate is believed to have begun in Australia and originally required a person to film themselves downing a pint of an alcoholic beverage, usually beer, in one swig. The person had to do this within 24 hours and was then required to upload the footage to a social media site to offer proof they had completed the challenge and then nominate two or three more people to do the same.

The game has evolved, where, in some cases, people down a shot instead, or gulp down a series of various drinks. Others involved doing the drink while doing something else at the same time such as jumping off a bridge with a parachute.

On one of the many Facebook pages dedicated to the game, one poster wrote: “For the sake of all the worried and scared parents out there, please stop this idiocy. For every time you risk your life with these dangerous and pointless dares you risk breaking your mother’s and father’s heart, you risk shattering the lives of your living relatives and friends and not only that but by taking part in this you encourage others, maybe even younger children, to risk their lives with more and more dangerous stunts.”

British newspapers are reporting four deaths can be attributed to Neknominate. 

Videos of Neknominations began circulating in Bermuda last week. None of the ones in Bermuda that the Bermuda Sun has seen have been of the extreme nature. One shows a young person downing six shots of Hennessey.

One person who spoke to the Bermuda Sun said: “I don’t see what the problem is. It’s a bit of a spot of fun and the media want to twist this into something’s that dangerous.

“Especially in Bermuda, where the ones I’ve seen are pretty tame. It’s just people drinking a pint. There’s no harm in there. What’s more serious are those people who spend all night drinking and then go out and drive. This is nothing like that.”

Another Bermuda resident said: “Look, there’s some crazy S*** other people are doing elsewhere. That’s not happening here. If you ban people from doing things because of the idiots, we’d hardly have any freedoms or fun.”