From the country that brought you inexplicable social media phenomenons like “karma is a bitch” and “the belly button challenges,” comes the latest viral sensation that scientists are referring to as “stupid” and “lame.” OK, that’s a lie. Scientists have yet to weigh in, but it actually is upsetting elevator engineers.
The craze, which originated on China’s Vine-like video app Tik Tok — also known as Douyin — involves people holding up elevators by dancing in and out of them.
Anyone who lives or works in a building that goes higher than the 10th floor knows that waiting for elevators can be annoying, but finding out you were waiting on a group of morons who were keeping the elevator door open for a slim shot at internet fame? That’s next level.
Back to those elevator engineers for second though. They’re not saying it’s annoying; they’re saying it’s … dangerous.
According to a news report by mainland cable channel Liaoning TV, some engineers are calling on people to stop filming elevator dance videos, because the dancing can actually cause the elevator to malfunction.
One man who took to the airwaves to implore people to cease with the shimmying and/or shaking is a Nanjing-based engineer called Jin Yan, who insisted that jumping in the elevator will cause it to “overload,” while continuously causing the elevator doors to open and close can cause the doors to lock and the elevator to malfunction.
Another expert — based in Jiangsu province in eastern China — told a morning news program called Good Morning Jiangsu that jumping around the elevator can even trigger the alarm system, and that someone can get trapped inside the elevator if people had been jumping up and down inside it earlier.
Of course, this is hardly the first time young people in China have been called out for mistreating escalators. Just last month, a 10-year-old boy from Shaanxi announced he would clean the elevator in an apartment block for a month after he was caught on CCTV peeing in the corner of it.
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