--- title: Teens Lighting Themselves on Fire for Viral Videos on Vine and YouTube description: The newest viral video trend is literally on fire canonical: https://time.com/3057938/dear-teens-please-stop-lighting-yourselves-on-fire/ author: Jessica Roy article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-30T15:21:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:12:01.911Z og:title: Dear Teens: Please Stop Lighting Yourselves on Fire og:description: The newest viral video trend is literally on fire og:url: https://time.com/3057938/dear-teens-please-stop-lighting-yourselves-on-fire/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt281b5b517379dfa8/69869dcae8524bfb5160419c/sb10068683a-001.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: sb10068683a-001 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Dear Teens: Please Stop Lighting Yourselves on Fire twitter:description: The newest viral video trend is literally on fire twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt281b5b517379dfa8/69869dcae8524bfb5160419c/sb10068683a-001.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Dear Teens: Please Stop Lighting Yourselves on Fire by [Jessica Roy](https://time.com/author/jessica-roy/) ## Jessica Roy Jul 30, 2014 3:21 PM UTC  Cigarette lighter with flame on black background, close-up Cigarette lighter with flame on black background, close-upMark Weiss—Getty Images by [Jessica Roy](https://time.com/author/jessica-roy/) ## Jessica Roy Jul 30, 2014 3:21 PM UTC Trends change with the seasons, and for America’s Internet-addled teens, there is nothing more trendy than melting skin. Now that the season for [tossing boiling water into sub-zero air is far behind us](http://www.buzzfeed.com/adriancarrasquillo/a-whole-bunch-of-people-threw-boiling-water-in-the-air-to-wa), listless teens have found new ways to critically burn themselves. Betraying a nostalgia for simpler times, some of today’s young adults have returned to the most reliable route to injury in the name of YouTube infamy: dousing your body in accelerant and just straight up lighting yourself on fire. The Daily Dot [reports](http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/fire-challenge-dangerous-teen-trend/) that videos of teens purposefully engulfing themselves in flames are spreading like wildfire across social media platforms like Vine and YouTube. One Kentucky teen whose video went viral even had to be[ treated for second-degree burns](http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/Lexington-teen-burns-himself-during-prank-268649152.html) to his torso. It is scientifically proven that hormones are extremely flammable even _without_ the help of lighter fluid. This is why it is absolutely crucial for teens to stay away from anything that poses a fire hazard, such as matchbooks or a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. So, kiddos, please step away from the lighter fluid or I will use it to burn this One Direction poster, and you wouldn’t want that now, would you? ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3057938/dear-teens-please-stop-lighting-yourselves-on-fire/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3057938/dear-teens-please-stop-lighting-yourselves-on-fire/"},"headline":"Dear Teens: Please Stop Lighting Yourselves on Fire","datePublished":"2014-07-30T15:21:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:12:01.911Z","description":"The newest viral video trend is literally on fire","url":"https://time.com/3057938/dear-teens-please-stop-lighting-yourselves-on-fire/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Teens","viral","fire","trends"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt281b5b517379dfa8/69869dcae8524bfb5160419c/sb10068683a-001.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jessica Roy","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/jessica-roy/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt281b5b517379dfa8/69869dcae8524bfb5160419c/sb10068683a-001.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"sb10068683a-001","caption":"sb10068683a-001","creditText":"Mark Weiss—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3057938/dear-teens-please-stop-lighting-yourselves-on-fire/","name":"Dear Teens: Please Stop Lighting Yourselves on Fire"}}]}] ```