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New social media trend has people playing dead

Exactly what it sounds like, the idea is to play dead and lie still for a photo or video, similar to the very recent Mannequin Challenge.

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South African youth enact the Dead Pose Challenge, which has garnered as much criticism as popularity
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If there’s one thing you can bank on teens today for, it is popularising a ridiculous trend. The latest is a new entry from South Africa called the ‘Dead Pose Challenge’. 

Exactly what it sounds like, the idea is to play dead and lie still for a photo or video, similar to the very recent Mannequin Challenge.

Since its inception about a week ago, the photos being uploaded online have gradually become more elaborate, increasingly gory and violent, and are frequently incorporating fake weapons and blood.

Karabo Mnisi, 18, a student who claims to have started the Dead Pose Challenge in South Africa, says he’s happy with how it’s turned out. 

“We are now only in phase two of these posts,” he told Mail Online. “The first phase showed no cuts, wounds or bloody [sic], but now phase two includes people who are covered in blood, who have been violently killed.” 

Mnisi refused to ask people to stop posting pictures enacting their deaths, even as they get more graphic, hoping to become an influencer someday in South Africa,  thanks to the new craze.

“The next phase is going to be even more graphic if I don’t reach my aim,” he said.

However, a lot of people, including many from South Africa, see the ‘joke’ as a serious issue. In a country with an estimated 50 deaths a day and 1.7 million rapes a year, Twitter users think the challenge is insensitive and promotes real-life violence.

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