No group of humans is more willing to inflict self-harm for utterly inconsequential reasons than teenagers (see the #FightingAirChallenge and #BackpackChallenge). Tell them to take a hammer to their kneecaps, and they shrug and say “why not?”
Sure beats doing homework.
Now, teens across the web are trying to break their own thumbs, all thanks to one dude and his friend.
JONATHAN ACTUALLY BROKE HIS SHIT LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO pic.twitter.com/4nOIPgJ6nq
— rah² (@rahkyuu) January 6, 2017
Jon didn’t really break his thumb, telling BuzzFeed News that he’s double-jointed.
In fact, it’s pretty much impossible to break your thumb by tucking it into your fingers and shaking your fist. Try it a hundred times. There’s no truth to it. The image comes from a medical diagram showing how to diagnose tendinitis, but it was repurposed into a 9gag meme last year with the fake thumb-breaking instructions at the top.
That hasn’t stopped teens on Twitter from claiming they’ve broken their own thumbs giving this a try.
Just look at these tweets. Whether they are from double-jointed teens playing along with the prank, or kids pretending because they thought it was real and couldn’t get it to work themselves, who knows? It’s too hard to tell the difference with kids these days.
But they all tried to see if they could do it.
https://twitter.com/lfw_lm/status/817207473106845697
https://twitter.com/kidnamedkarmine/status/817216453854330880
yall making people break their thumbs out here, smh.. pic.twitter.com/3RSiMaXP2z
— LENNY (@_Lennessy) January 6, 2017
https://twitter.com/mirandaestradaa/status/817235575908528135
https://twitter.com/Meli__10/status/817224152771796993
https://twitter.com/littlejanet07/status/817250082173042688
https://twitter.com/littlejanet07/status/817251855474429953
https://twitter.com/lfw_lm/status/817227083512299520
WTF pic.twitter.com/PnXVnaW2Rc
— major kink (@_kinkyy) January 6, 2017
https://twitter.com/chloe_mcgin/status/817217435929604098
https://twitter.com/A_A_Ron_Rodgers/status/817221441070501889
https://twitter.com/beyoncavargass_/status/817247884269600768
this don't even work OoP pic.twitter.com/Z4I70eiJ1j
— lex (@dotscara) January 6, 2017
CAM JUST BROKE HIS THUMB OVER A TWEET pic.twitter.com/67TxVUoBfO
— Drew Jones (@drewj2017) January 6, 2017
Although no one really got hurt doing this, the explosion of the meme, which racked up over 70,000 retweets, left its creator exasperated.
If one more person mentions me with a fucking broken thump pic I swear to god !?&?&!)&!
— rah² (@rahkyuu) January 6, 2017
If you can’t stand the tweet, don’t start the meme.
H/T BuzzFeed