Teen Arrests Rise As TikTok's Viral Orbeez Challenge Sweeps The Nation

A new TikTok trend called the Orbeez Challenge has reportedly caused countless serious injuries as of Tuesday, March 22, as more and more teenagers participate in the dangerous viral challenge that’s sweeping the nation.

The Orbeez Challenge uses a product called Orbeez, which are squishy polymer beads used by children and adults alike, and loads said product up to an airsoft gun before shooting them at targets to post on social media, according to the Daily Beast.

Parents across the country are worried as they find their children suffering from injuries due to the Orbeez Challenge, which at times are also frozen by the children to inflict more damage to the people being targeted.

“We continue to see teenagers utilizing the cart path while discharging splat ball guns (Orbeez) at other people on the cart path, even at innocent bystanders. Now they are modifying the beads to be more painful,” a local Georgia police department said in a statement.

In a Florida school, a teenager was arrested on felony battery charges for shooting the beads at a school employee while filming it to post on Snapchat, though the teacher himself wasn’t injured by the incident, WESH News reported.

And in another incident in a North Carolina, a young girl was shot and injured in the eye because of the prank, with the police looking into filing charges against the teenager for assaulting the child.

“She doesn’t deserve to have an injury and this guy has to think about what he’s doing. And the parents have to be responsible for their kids’ actions, because this is not right,” Ana Rosa Alonso, the girl’s mother, said.

Orbeez’s manufacturer, Spin Master, has said in a statement that teenagers should stop misusing the product, saying that “Orbeez are designed for educational, creative, and sensory play and are not intended to be used as projectiles or inserted in mechanisms,” according to ABC affiliate WATE.

In spite of that, Spin Master has been promoting the product on TikTok to capitalize on the challenge, though it is more centered on using it in creative playtime ideas instead of as ammunition.