If you've been curious about the #CharlieCharlieChallenge hashtag popping up on Twitter over the past few days, here's a warning that this is nothing like last year's Ice Bucket Challenge—though participants may scream just as loud. The game, which CNN points out could be described as "nothing but a mashup of the Ouija board and [the] 'Bloody Mary' [game]," involves summoning a supposed Mexican demon by placing two pencils in the form of a cross on a piece of paper and writing "Yes" and "No" in the alternating squares. Players then ask, "Charlie, Charlie, are you here?" (or some variant, like "Charlie, Charlie, can we play?"); if a pencil rolls toward a "Yes," players must then ask Charlie some more specific questions and see how he/she/it responds.
The game has produced a plethora of videos and tweets of those partaking, ostensibly spooked by the presence of Charlie, described as both a group of Mexican demons or a single spooky entity (some say it's a child who committed suicide; others, a "demonic Mexican man with black and red eyes," per the Independent). KFOR has compiled a decent number of these photos and freakouts. But BBC Mundo reporter Maria Elena Navez says there's no demon known as "Charlie" in Mexican mythology, pointing out out that gods in old-time Mexican myths would have had names like Tlaltecuhtli or Tezcatlipoca. "If this legend began after the Spanish conquest, I'm sure it would've been called 'Carlitos' (Charlie in Spanish)," she tells the BBC. So why do the pencils move? Gravity and the "awkward positioning of some pencils," the Independent explains. (Some Mexican priests spend their time battling an "infestation of demons.")
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