Kids make fun of tragedy with the Itaewon Game

Students playing the Hamburger Game [SCREEN CAPTURE]

A fad among kids to pile on one another to mimic the deadly crowd crush in Seoul’s Itaewon section on Oct. 29 has startled the world of adults — and become a wake-up call about how children are not being taught to respect real-life tragedies.

In the so-called Itaewon Game, kids pile onto each other, and the person on the bottom wins depending on how many people he or she could tolerate.

In fact, the same game has existed for more than a decade under different names including the Pass-out Challenge, Hamburger Game and Sandwich Game. The Itaewon tragedy, in which 158 people died, has simply given it a new name, and a new popularity.

“With videos of the Itaewon disaster spreading on social media, the Hamburger Game, which look similar to the disaster, have been spreading among students,” said Lim, a 7th grader in Seoul.

“Games where students push their desks and chairs aside in classrooms and some 10 people pile up and put pressure on one person are being played every recess time,” continued Lim.

“I was shocked to see students playing the Hamburger Game at school, calling it the Itaewon Game, said Park, a 10th grader in Seoul.

Similar accounts can be found on social media popular with teenagers like TikTok.

“Students shouted ‘Push, push’ [as some reports said occurred in the Itaewon disaster] when the line was long during lunch time,” one online user wrote in a TikTok video.

“Students at my school played it again today, and one boy said his back hurt and he couldn’t breathe,” wrote another user.

One comment read, “I saw several male high school students pushing a fellow student toward the wall and calling it ‘Itaewon.’”

Yet some said they were unfamiliar with the Itaewon Game.

“I have not seen students in my school or in my class [playing such a game],” a fifth-grade teacher in Gwacheon told the Korea JoongAng Daily. “I looked up [the Hamburger Game] on an online community used by elementary school teachers, and there was no mention of such a game since 2018.”

“The Hamburger Game has existed for a while,” said a high school student who requested anonymity, “and I think it's just a few immature people who call it the Itaewon Game.”

How kids absorb news about disasters cannot be controlled, especially in a hyper-connected society like Korea.

The Korean Association of Teachers of Media literacy (Katom) released media use guidelines for teachers and the general public in disaster situations on Nov. 8.

“If children and teenagers play a game mimicking an incident, there is a high risk that it will lead to a big safety-related accident as they are not properly aware of the risk,” the association said.

Some experts said students need some guidance on how to react to public tragedies.

“As unfiltered, edited videos of the disaster are being shared on social media, there are great concerns that students could have a distorted perception,” said Professor Yoo Hyun-jae from the Department of Communications at Sogang University. “Although mass trauma is already being felt, it's a big problem that no education is being provided on how students should accept and recognize disasters.”

“Like the once popular Suicide Game, teenagers often imitate behaviors," said Lim Myung-ho, a professor of psychology at Dankook University. "And when it becomes a trend, they follow it without thinking about side effects.

“Perverse actions like the Hamburger Game spread among teenagers via social media or other media outlets,” said Lee Chang-ho, a senior researcher at the National Youth Policy Institute. “We should educate students to grow critical thinking skills.”

BY CHAE HYE-SEON, SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]