Ooo, you got us, Hollywood. You got us good. But you will rue the day you pulled a fast one over us. You hear us? You will rue. The. DAY. Because we might not have been smart enough to realize that an Internet fad that came out of nowhere was probably due to a marketing ploy cooked up by a movies studio, but we certainly still have our pride.
Meh, whatever.
You might remember last week that the youths of America were posting videos all over social media of themselves doing the Charlie Charlie challenge, which was sort of like this generation's Bloody Bloody Mary combined with an Ouija board. It was mindless, silly fun. We even tried it (and totally nailed it).
For some reason people believed the Charlie Charlie challenge opened a demon portal, which was either due to an Urban legend-turned Internet rumor gone awry or it was part of the clever marketing campaign. Either way, folks were legitimately terrified that the Charlie Charlie Vines were releasing demonic soldiers on Earth, and we were even being scolded for "promoting satanic rituals."
Relax, guys. It was just a movie campaign, courtesy of Warner Bros. Please do not believe everything you read on the Internet and we promise that if you don't forward that chain email to 19 friends, the ghost of the Confederate 9-year-old girl from the Civil War will not haunt you.
A new teaser for Warner Bros. upcoming horror film The Gallows was released right in the thick of the Charlie Charlie brouhaha, and it featured a much creepier version of the game with a much more upsetting outcome than just students shrieking and running from the room.
So either this whole Charlie Charlie Challenge was a viral marketing campaign cooked up by Warner Bros. or the studio saw an opportunity to infiltrate the kids of the world while the trend was hot. Either way, we will never trust anything on the Internet again.