--- title: What Is the Charlie Charlie Challenge description: Teens are using pencils to call upon a "Mexican demon" with the "Charlie Charlie Challenge," the latest Internet fad. canonical: https://time.com/3897606/charlie-charlie-challenge/ author: Esther Zuckerman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-27T14:48:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:26.680Z og:title: Here's Why People Are Freaking Out Over the #CharlieCharlieChallenge og:description: Teens are using pencils to call upon a "Mexican demon" with the "Charlie Charlie Challenge," the latest Internet fad. og:url: https://time.com/3897606/charlie-charlie-challenge/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b9279fc33fcc6b3/698851c7428a9edaa6ccd6ad/screen-shot-2015-05-27-at-10-00-13-am.png?branch=production&width=602&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 602 og:image:height: 339 og:image:alt: Screen Shot 2015-05-27 at 10.00.13 AM og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's Why People Are Freaking Out Over the #CharlieCharlieChallenge twitter:description: Teens are using pencils to call upon a "Mexican demon" with the "Charlie Charlie Challenge," the latest Internet fad. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b9279fc33fcc6b3/698851c7428a9edaa6ccd6ad/screen-shot-2015-05-27-at-10-00-13-am.png?branch=production&width=602&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's Why People Are Freaking Out Over the Charlie Charlie Challenge > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: It’ll Be A Cold Day: The Ice Bucket Challenge [Watch (HLS stream): It’ll Be A Cold Day: The Ice Bucket Challenge](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/GIHofBBD.m3u8) (1:33)  _Published 2014-08-11. If you’ve seen people all over your newsfeed dumping buckets of ice water on themselves, you’re not alone. The Ice Bucket Challenge is ironically one of the hottest things on social media as it tries to raise money for ALS charities._ by [Esther Zuckerman](https://time.com/author/esther-zuckerman/) ## Esther Zuckerman Zuckerman is a contributor for TIME. May 27, 2015 2:48 PM UTC  by [Esther Zuckerman](https://time.com/author/esther-zuckerman/) ## Esther Zuckerman Zuckerman is a contributor for TIME. May 27, 2015 2:48 PM UTC Here’s a fun thing the kids are doing these days with school supplies: using pencils to call upon an alleged [“Mexican demon”](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/charlie-charlie-challenge) with the “Charlie Charlie Challenge,” the latest Internet fad. The game is simple: draw a grid on a piece of paper with “yes” and “no” in the boxes, balance one pencil on top of another in the shape of a cross, and ask something along the lines of “Charlie, Charlie are you here?” or “Charlie, Charlie can we play?” Then watch as the pencil moves and proceed to scream, etc. For viral fun, film yourself doing this and share the result. As is typical of memes, Charlie Charlie’s origins are murky. Mic traced the [history](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird-news/charlie-charlie-challenge-explained-its-not-a-mexican-demon-being-summoned--its-gravity-10276557.html) of the game’s incarnations around the Internet back to 2008\. Know Your Meme [notes](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/charlie-charlie-challenge) that a YouTube video titled “Jugando Charly Charlie,” which involves a slightly different pencil-related game, showed up in June 2014\. According to the BBC, Twitter user [@\_kluh](http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32887325#sa-ns%5Fmchannel=rss&ns%5Fsource=PublicRSS20-sa) was an early adopter of the hashtag. So why do the pencils move? _The Independent_ [credits](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird-news/charlie-charlie-challenge-explained-its-not-a-mexican-demon-being-summoned--its-gravity-10276557.html) the supernatural-seeming occurrence to “gravity, and the awkward positioning of some pencils.” So, no, it’s not some demon. Here are some examples: > [](https://twitter.com/PariCalvia/status/603547888246005760) > [](https://twitter.com/dylanobney42/status/603404318025256960) > [](https://twitter.com/izzienitecki/status/603238575564423168) And here’s a Paula Deen edition: > [](https://twitter.com/MicaelaMuller%5F/status/603278432865255424) And the Beyoncé edition: And the Zayn edition: > [](https://twitter.com/xLarrySyndrome/status/603370429395410945) _Read next:_ [_Twitter Is Exploding Right Now Over the Major FIFA Arrests_](http://time.com/3897574/fifaarrests/?iid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/autoplay/?xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ## Transcript If you've seen people all over your news feed dumping buckets of ice water on themselves, you're not alone. The ice bucket challenge is ironically one of the hottest things on social media as it tries to raise money for ALS foundations. The challenge went viral thanks to former Boston College pitcher Pete Frates, who was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease disease in 2012. So what does the challenge entail? A person dumps ice water on themselves and then challenges six other people to do the same in 24 hours or donate $ 100 to an ALS charity. Celebrities such as The Fault in Our Stars actor Ansel Elgort and Martha Stewart have joined in on the challenge. Boston. com and. Frank's parents organized a mass ice bucket challenge last Thursday, after which, the website challenged New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Some questioned the effect of the ice bucket challenge with the Boston Herald quoting a Twitter user as saying. I don't see how dumping a bucket of ice water over your head can cure a disease. Meanwhile Frates told the paper, via Facebook, that exposure like this is what the ALS community needs so we can even attempt to find a cure and reversal for people living with this insidious disease. The challenge has led to a spike in donations for the ALS Association. The foundation's president, Barbara Newhouse, told CBS's WBZ News Radio that the organization raised more than $ 168, 000 in online donations in the past week, compared to just $ 14, 000 over the same time frame last year. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3897606/charlie-charlie-challenge/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3897606/charlie-charlie-challenge/"},"headline":"Here's Why People Are Freaking Out Over the Charlie Charlie Challenge","datePublished":"2015-05-27T14:48:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:48:26.680Z","description":"\"Charlie, Charlie...\"","url":"https://time.com/3897606/charlie-charlie-challenge/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","memes"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b9279fc33fcc6b3/698851c7428a9edaa6ccd6ad/screen-shot-2015-05-27-at-10-00-13-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Esther Zuckerman","jobTitle":"Zuckerman is a contributor for TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/esther-zuckerman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b9279fc33fcc6b3/698851c7428a9edaa6ccd6ad/screen-shot-2015-05-27-at-10-00-13-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Screen Shot 2015-05-27 at 10.00.13 AM","caption":"","creditText":"","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/3897606/charlie-charlie-challenge/","name":"Here's Why People Are Freaking Out Over the Charlie Charlie Challenge"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"It’ll Be A Cold Day: The Ice Bucket Challenge","description":"If you’ve seen people all over your newsfeed dumping buckets of ice water on themselves, you’re not alone. 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