Charlie Charlie Challenge

Basic set up for the Charlie Charlie Challenge

The "Charlie Charlie" Challenge (also referred to as the "Charlie Charlie" Game) is a game which was popularized through the Internet in 2015, partly through the hashtag #CharlieCharlieChallenge. It may have originated from a playground game in Spanish-speaking countries known as Juego de la Lapicera ("Game of the Pens"), although it has also been linked to a 2008 YouTube video entitled Jugando Charly Charlie. On 29 April 2015, an alarmist tabloid television newscast about the game being played in Hato Mayor Province of the Dominican Republic was uploaded to YouTube, and the unintentional humor in the report led to the game trending on Twitter, crossing the language barrier to be played around the world.

Game

Four pencils

In an early version of the game, two players each hold two pencils in the shape of a square, pressing the ends of their pencils against the other player's. Like a Ouija board, it uses the ideomotor phenomenon, with players moving the pencils without conscious control.

Two pencils

The two pencil game involves crossing two pens or pencils to create a grid (with sectors labelled "yes" and "no") and then asking questions of a "supernatural entity" named "Charlie". The upper pencil is then expected to rotate to indicate the answer to such questions. The main question everyone asks is "can we play?"

The top pencil is precariously balanced on a central pivot point, meaning that it can easily rotate on the pivot due to slight wind gusts, or the breathing of players expecting the pencil to move.

Reactions

In Spain, teenage girls have played Juego de la Lapicera for generations in school playgrounds and sleepovers, asking which boys in their class fancied them. In Colombia, four teenage girls were sent to a hospital in Tunja and quickly released with a diagnosis of Mass hysteria.

According to Caitlyn Dewey of The Washington Post, this game is valuable as an example of cross-cultural viral trends: "Charlie makes a killer case study in virality and how things move in and out of languages and cultures online. You’ll notice, for instance, a lot of players and reporters talking about the game as if it were new, when it’s actually — and more interestingly, I think — an old game that has just recently crossed the language divide." Maria Elena Navez of BBC Mundo said "There's no demon called 'Charlie' in Mexico," and suggested that Mexican demons with English names (rather than, say, "Carlitos") are "usually American inventions."

Psychological suggestion can lead people to expect a particular response, which can result in thoughts and behaviors that will help bring the anticipated outcome to fruition - for instance by breathing more heavily. Christopher French, head of the anomalistic psychology research unit at the University of London says that human agent detection leads people to see patterns in random events and perceive an intelligence behind them. He argues that divination games involve magical thinking, saying "Often the 'answers' received [in divination games] might be vague and ambiguous, but our inherent ability to find meaning — even when it isn't there — ensures that we will perceive significance in those responses and be convinced that an intelligence of some kind lay behind them."

Stuart Vyse, a psychology professor at Connecticut College argues that teenagers often go to see paranormal movies in groups, and "There's a real social bonding aspect to this whole phenomenon," and "It's almost a developmental passage for some kids, to deal with things that are scary." Donald Saucier, a psychology professor at Kansas State University argues that teenagers go though "a period where social influence is very strong" and they are more prone to superstition. Stephen Schlozman, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School said “I think kids are interested in the dares that aren’t actually all that dangerous, but have that feeling of danger to them.”

Various media outlets described participants in the games as gullible. Pastor Carl Gallups told WPTF news radio "I have done some experiments with this, and I think people are being punked. On my desk in front of me, I have the two pencils set up and the one on the top that is balanced is easily moved by just a puff of air." He continued, "I held my phone up to pretend like I was filming it and just started breathing a little heavy, but it's indiscernible to anybody around, and the pencil just moves so easily."

Andrew Griffin wrote in The Independent that the game is "perhaps scarier than a Ouija board because it doesn't have the same explanations. With those boards, players have to keep hold of a glass while it moves around the table — so it’s not difficult to imagine that people might be pushing it around without knowing it."

Various tabloid media outlets have tried to create a moral panic among credulous audiences. Pat Robertson, who has promoted a moral panic over the game Dungeons and Dragons, denounced the Charlie Charlie challenge as demonic. Various exorcists have promoted the idea that the game causes demonic possession, along with Muslims in Jamaica and the UAE.

In popular culture

The producers of the horror film The Gallows promoted their film on the bandwagon of the game, releasing a video clip featuring the game. In addition to the film The Gallows, Charlie Charlie and the media reaction were featured in June 2015 entries of the webcomic Something Positive.

See also

• Bloody Mary (folklore)
• Magic 8-ball
• Paper fortune teller
• Paul the Octopus