Neknominations a way to do acts of kindness, finds one Langara student

Drinking stunt videos, also known as neknominations, have gone viral, but recently people have changed the fad into doing random acts of kindness.

Staring in Austrialia, neknominations quickly spread to Europe and North America, becoming dangerous when people tried to outdo each other by performing reckless drinking stunts, like drinking rubbing alcohol or jumping off bridges.

A friend of University of Victoria students Jordan Houston and Austin Coutts passed away from heart failure. Along with drinking a beer, they donated money to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada as part of their neknomination hoping it would encourage people do something positive with theirs.

Coutts said neknominations can be fun if you don’t “drink yourselves into oblivion.”

One Langara student puts a positive spin on a dangerous game

The new neknominations have caught on, being dubbed “raknominations” since they involve random acts of kindness.

Langara criminal justice student Tara Nordin said, “If people are going to be mature and responsible about it, then it’s not the worst idea in the world, but obviously that’s not what happened and people keep trying to take it to the next level.”

Nordin posted her neknomination on Facebook and for every “like” the video got, she donated a dollar towards buying tokens from Save On Meats in the Downtown Eastside to hand out to the homeless to redeem for sandwiches.

“I thought about not doing anything at all because it just would have been really easy to ignore it. I decided that since I had the opportunity, to do it and people probably would pay attention to something like that,” said Nordin. “Maybe I had influenced at least one person to do something better or at least not do something they’re going to regret.”

Another student uses neknominations as a way to (responsibly) connect with friends far away

Langara psychology student Eric Xu said he’s heard of “raknominations,” but he’s sticking to the original drinking version.

“I’m gonna nominate friends I have who are overseas. It’s kind of a way that I connect with them,” he said.

“You just need to know what your limit is and then you’ll be safe. Not safe, but safer.”

Reported by Lauren Collins