It feels like every summer brings some sort of weird viral trend that inevitably comes to a head when someone hurts themselves, or their reputation, trying to do it.
This year it's the Nicki Minaj challenge, in which people try to recreate a post from Minaj's appearance in the the 2013 High School video, which involves balancing in a precarious crouch while wearing frankly impressive stiletto heels.
@nickiminaj/YouTube
Instead of staying (relatively) safe on the ground, people are now balancing in stilettos on increasingly more dangerous surfaces, such as stacked dumbbells, or anywhere higher off the ground.
Russian influencer Mariana Vasiuc found out the hard way that trying the challenge on top of several small-ish items on a kitchen counter was perhaps a poorly thought out escalation of the original trend.
Vasiuc could be seen in the video maintaining balance for less than a second before she fell backwards off the container.
She clarified in the post, originally in Russian, that she got a fracture of her T9 vertebra, albeit not a complicated type.
The new mother, just weeks from giving birth to her first child, said:
"The irony? Karma? Or just life, which always tests our strength at the most unexpected moment.”
For those worried about her after the post went viral, Vasiuc assured people that she's relatively okay and recovering.
She said:
"I’m doing great, following the guidelines and now living in 'star' status."
Folks were concerned for her, as that fall looked bad.
In general, people were unimpressed with those who take up the challenge.
Maybe this particular injury will be a morality story, and folks will think twice about attempting potentially dangerous viral "challenges" when they next pop up.
Judging by how little everyone learned from Tide Pods, though, they probably will not.
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