Search “how to play choking game” online and you might get a clue to the root of a deadly trend among kids.
Thousands of videos and tutorials crop up showing the risky phenomenon, in which kids force themselves to pass out, either by their own means or by having a friend choke them, in order to experience the supposed euphoria of, well, breathing again. It’s not new to the internet or the playground, but it’s making headlines again after an 11-year-old boy in South Carolina died last week after allegedly playing the “game” in his bedroom.
‘The internet has taken what has been a schoolyard game and expanded it explosively.’
- Judy Rogg, director of Erik's Cause
It’s a resurgence, some say. Experts disagree: Although the game had largely disappeared from the news cycle until recently, it’s more prevalent than parents or health officials recognize.
That’s because the game has masqueraded under a number of names that seem innocuous enough, such as “space monkey,” “cloud nine” and “five minutes in heaven.” It varies in practice, too: The latest, the “pass out” game, has turned up all over Snapchat and YouTube, and shows kids taking rapid deep breaths for 45 seconds until another applies pressure to their chest and they lose consciousness. Videos show young, cherubic kids collapsing to the ground and even having seizures.
“There are different ways it’s done, but the intent is that it is happening is the same. It is disrupting the flow of blood to the brain and causing them to lose consciousness,” Judy Rogg, director of Erik’s Cause, an organization that works to prevent the practice, told The Post.
In a 2015 study, University of Wisconsin researchers looked at 419 “choking game” videos, which in total had been viewed 22 million times, and determined that the internet has “normalized” the behavior and increased the likelihood that viewers will follow suit.
“The internet has taken what has been a schoolyard game and expanded it explosively,” Rogg said.
Not only that, but peer pressure plays a huge role in the game’s popularity. There’s a performance aspect to the game, made obvious by the presence of the videos themselves, often showing clusters of adolescents egging one another on.
Deaths from the game are difficult to track, as they are often declared suicides. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a 2008 report that attributed 82 deaths from 1995 to 2007 to the “choking game,” but admitted that the available data do not show the full scope of the issue.
“CDC reviewed multiple national data sources on child deaths as well as injuries treated in emergency departments, but we did not find a data source that allows for identification of the choking game as a cause of injury or death,” the CDC told The Post in an email. “We continue to track statistics on choking in general, but the system does not get down to the level of detail of the exact mechanism.”
The lack of data has allowed the practice to fly under the radar in schools and homes. There is limited research on how many students are playing the game: Emergency room admission forms and student risk assessments often do not take it into account.
There’s a performance aspect to the game, made obvious by the presence of the videos themselves, often showing clusters of adolescents egging one another on.
Rogg, who founded Erik’s Cause, knows personally how easily officials can dismiss the “choking game” as a cause.
Her son, Erik Robinson, was in sixth grade when he accidentally died in 2009 after using a rope in their California home. Frustrated with homework, he strangled himself in the kitchen. Rogg said she knew there was more to the story, but had never heard of the game. The 12-year-old got good grades in school and had dreams of enrolling at West Point.
“We were convinced that the police were crazy,” Rogg said. “It wasn’t until several days later that one of the kids broke the chain of silence.”
A fellow student revealed Erik had been playing the “choking game” at school the day before. The police looked into it further and determined his death was an accident.
In the wake of Erik’s death, Rogg became determined to educate students and parents about the game’s risks. But prevention is a double-edged sword: By educating kids about the game, well-meaning people might not only raise awareness but curiosity. Students who have never heard of the game before might be interested in playing it once they know it exists.
Rogg says when the organization goes into schools, they’re careful not to teach students the game’s method. Instead, they discuss brain development, and how the students’ will not be fully formed until age 25.
“We talk about the brain and how to keep it healthy, and then we make a slight pivot to say any blood and oxygen that is being disrupted to the brain is a danger,” she said.
She said there is one point that really drives home the seriousness of the topic for them.
“We go into the names for the game and tell them there is one name that is called ‘flatlining,’ ” Rogg said. “So one name for this cool activity is that your heart stops and you’re dead. This is not a cool name.”