Bottle Cap Challenge

About

The Bottle Cap Challenge, often represented by the hashtag #BottleCapChallenge, is an internet challenge in which participants record themselves performing a roundhouse kick to a bottle in order to graze the cap with their foot, causing it to quickly spin off. In late June 2019, the challenge was popularized online after being performed by various celebrities.

Origin

On June 25th, 2019, Taekwondo instructor Farabi Davletchin posted a video to Instagram^[2] in which he kicks a bottle cap off a bottle several times using different approaches (shown below). Within six days, the post garnered more than 211,000 views and 12,500 likes.

Spread

On June 28th, mixed martial artist Max Holloway tweeted^[3] a clip of himself kicking a bottle cap off a bottle, along with a message passing the challenge on to musician John Mayer (shown below).

The following day, Mayer posted a video of himself kicking off a bottle cap on Instagram, along with a message calling for actor Jason Statham to perform the challenge as well (shown below). Within 48 hours, the post received more than four million views and 798,000 likes.

On July 1st, Statham uploaded footage of himself performing the challenge to Instagram, where it gathered upwards of 11 million views and four million likes in less than 24 hours (shown below). The following day, Ebaum's World^[1] highlighted the Jason Statham video in a post titled "Jason Statham Takes the #BottleChallenge to the Next Level with a Roundhouse Kick." Meanwhile, Memebase^[4] highlighted several of the challenges in an article titled "Bottle Cap Challenge Is Inspiring Jason Statham And John Mayer To Flex On Each Other."

TikTok

On July 2nd, 2019, various TikTok users uploaded their #BottleCapChallenge videos. TikTok user @patroX uploaded an impressive flip but lost the challenge in a video that gained over 125,000 likes in a day (shown below, left). That same day, TikTok user @MartyandMichael uploaded a teamed up version of the challenge (shown below, center) and @withrussianaccent uploaded a tutorial on how to fake win the challenge (shown below, right). Their videos gained over 32,700 likes and 11,300 likes respectively in a day.

Celebrities

On July 3rd, 2019, The New York Times^[5] published an article covering the various celebrities who participated in the Bottle Cap Challenge. Over the next week celebrities like Ryan Reynolds^[8], Lizzo^[9], Blake Shelton^[10], Diplo^[11], Guy Ritchie^[12], Whitney Cummings^[13], Ellie Goulding^[14], Swae Lee ^[15], and Shaquille O'neal^[16] had participated in the challenge. On July 7th, Justin Bieber uploaded a Bottle Cap Challenge video to Instagram nominating his wife and Tom Cruise (shown below). The video gained over 20.8 million views in three days.

On July 7th, Mariah Carey uploaded her rendition using her iconically high range to remove the cap (shown below). The video gained over 4.4 million views in three days.

On July 10th, Ryan Seacrest had partaken in the challenge and uploaded his version to his Instagram page.

Kendall Jenner

On July 8th, 2019, Kendall Jenner uploaded a video in which she kicks a plastic bottle cap into the ocean while riding a jet ski (shown below). The video garnered over 24.8 million views in two days.

On July 9th, Twitter users began commenting on how irresponsible Kendall Jenner's variation of the Bottle Cap Challenge is. Twitter user @paigetouzet^[6] tweeted, "she better dive in and find that bottle cap" (shown below, left) and @moonbisous^[7] tweeted, "kendall jenner doing the no cap challenge and throwing other plastic into the ocean ……….. can this girl get o n e thing right ?!?!" (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References