Internet Culture

Teens are so bored, they’re using this guide to try to break their own thumbs

Teens really will try anything once.

Photo of David Covucci

David Covucci

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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?”

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Sure beats doing homework. 

Now, teens across the web are trying to break their own thumbs, all thanks to one dude and his friend. 

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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.

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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

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https://twitter.com/kidnamedkarmine/status/817216453854330880

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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

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https://twitter.com/lfw_lm/status/817227083512299520

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https://twitter.com/chloe_mcgin/status/817217435929604098

https://twitter.com/A_A_Ron_Rodgers/status/817221441070501889

https://twitter.com/beyoncavargass_/status/817247884269600768

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Although no one really got hurt doing this, the explosion of the meme, which racked up over 70,000 retweets, left its creator exasperated. 

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If you can’t stand the tweet, don’t start the meme.

H/T BuzzFeed

 
The Daily Dot