Ned Frisk Photography/Corbis
Alright kids, we need to talk. Please take my advice: Stop watching stupid things on YouTube and then trying them at home.
The latest (completely idiotic and disturbing) YouTube trend known as “sack tapping,” caused 14-year-old David Gibbons of Crosby, Minnesota more than just a few moments of excruciating pain — he had to have his right testicle amputated after being punched in the groin by a classmate.
Sack tapping is a game played among boys and the goal is simple: punch your opponent in the testicles before he can punch you. While some could argue the “game,” also called ball tapping, is just boys being boys, its popularity is having a disturbing effect. Dr. Scott Wheeler, a urologist in Brainerd, Minnesota told KARE11 in Minneapolis, that he performs three to four surgeries a year on teens who have ruptured testicles and other injuries as a result of the so-called game — and that is just in his one small community. In fact, a November 2009 study conducted by a television station in Indianapolis found that 62% of nurses in middle schools were aware of students who engaged in the sack-tapping game. As Gibbon’s mother Christy said, “This may be a game, but it’s not a game. It’s dangerous and it needs to stop.”
I know teenage boys are not always known for making the smartest decisions, but here’s hoping they wise up and start thinking of posterity. Luckily for David, doctors told him he should still be able to have children someday.