What is the Gauntlet Challenge? The TikTok trend explained

17 May 2022, 17:29

Holly Madison explains what Cheug Life means on TikTok

By Jazmin Duribe

The Gauntlet Challenge, or Run The Gauntlet Challenge, actually dates back to 2015.

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People on TikTok have been left "traumatised" after participating in the Gauntlet Challenge.

We think we can all agree that the internet is a weird, and sometimes disturbing, place. In recent years, TikTok has become the platform where all the bizarre and dangerous challenges are circulated. For example, the Penny Challenge which involved people plugging a charger halfway into an outlet so that the prongs are exposed, or the Slap a Teacher Challenge, which saw students assault their teachers for views.

However, now it seems that the disturbing Gauntlet Challenge is starting to gain traction on the platform. Here's what the challenge involves.

What is the the Gauntlet Challenge?

What is the Gauntlet Challenge on TikTok? Picture: Alamy

The Gauntlet Challenge, or Run The Gauntlet Challenge, involves watching the most disgusting videos on the internet in the hope of reaching the last and most extreme video. There doesn't appear to be a particular reason why people are doing this, but the challenge has 20 levels and each level features a video more disturbing than the last. The videos gradually get more and more extreme as the levels ascend.

According to Urban Dictionary, some of the clips include things like a dog being skinned alive and a video titled "three guys one hammer". However, it's also worth noting that some clips aren't real and have been created to incite fear.

It's nothing new though, there's articles on the disturbing challenge that date back to 2015. The videos can be found on Reddit and the Run The Gauntlet website which claims to contain the "most vile, puke inducing, hard to watch videos on the internet". The website was actually created by an anonymous person only known as "G" who originally built the site for a client in 2010.

G told Daily Beast that they wanted to build a platform containing videos that gradually became more extreme so that "by the end of it, you'd 'seen it all and are probably desensitized to anything else on the internet". The website was then launched in 2015 after the client disappeared.

Although the whole premise is from the 2010s, it appears that people on TikTok have decided to resurface the trend and are sharing their reactions to watching the grim videos.

If you see any disturbing content on your FYP in relation to the challenge, it's probably best to report it right away. You can do this by simply clicking "report" on the righthand side of the video and then selecting "violent or graphic content".