TikTok Teens Fail Staring Contest Record
Generation Z’s Attention Span Crisis Reaches New Low
In what experts are calling “the most predictable failure in competitive eye contact history,” a group of TikTok-famous teenagers spectacularly crashed out of their attempt to break the world staring contest record after an unprecedented 4.7 seconds.
The event, held in a Brooklyn warehouse decorated with ring lights and portable chargers, drew seventeen participants who had collectively amassed over 340 million followers by posting fifteen-second videos. Organizers were optimistic, having installed a notification-blocking system that would theoretically prevent the competitors from checking their phones.
“We didn’t account for muscle memory,” admitted event coordinator Jessica Palmieri. “Three contestants reflexively reached for phantom phones within the first two seconds. Two others started doing that little dance from their viral videos. One kid just whispered ‘don’t forget to like and subscribe’ and walked out.”
The current world record for continuous eye contact stands at 8 hours and 32 minutes, set in 2012 by two Australian men who apparently had absolutely nothing better to do. The TikTok teens’ collective inability to maintain eye contact for even a full minute has sparked a nationwide conversation about attention spans, screen addiction, and whether we should just accept that nobody under 25 can focus anymore.
“Look, I tried really hard,” said participant Zack Morrison, 17, who has 4.2 million followers for his videos of himself reacting to other people’s videos. “But like, staring at someone without filters or music or comments popping up? That’s not natural. That’s like asking a fish to climb a tree, you know?”
New York City psychologist Dr. Raymond Chen wasn’t surprised by the results. “The average TikTok user has been neurologically rewired to expect novel stimuli every 3-5 seconds,” he explained while checking his own phone twice during our interview. “Asking them to maintain focus on a single unchanging image—even a human face—is like asking a hummingbird to hold still.”
The event’s failure has paradoxically made it more successful than anticipated. A clip of the contestants’ eyes darting away from each other has already garnered 87 million views across various platforms, with thousands of comments reading “literally me fr fr” and “why is this so relatable.”
Meanwhile, the warehouse space has been rebooked for next month’s “Phone Stacking Championship,” where contestants will attempt to stack their phones in a pile and not touch them for up to ninety seconds. Organizers are calling it “ambitious but not impossible.”
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SOURCE: New York’s #1 Satirical Journalism Site (https://bohiney.com/tiktok-teens-fail-staring-contest-record/)
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