Door Kick Challenge

Submission 9,237

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About

The Door Kick Challenge or the "I Hear Your Heartbeat To The Beat Of The Drums" Challenge refers to a prank trend on TikTok where you film yourself or friends approaching a closed door, often in a dormitory or school housing complex but sometimes other homes and playing the song "Die Young" by Kesha against it then kicking on the door loudly after Kesha sings, "I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums." The trend began in early October 2021. Later that month, UK police began investigating the challenge after it was allegedly responsible for damaging a number of doors.

Origin

On October 11th, 2021, TikToker^[1] @andrinks_08 posted a video where two men approach a closed door in what appears to be a dorm or student apartment with a speaker blasting "Die Young" by Kesha. They place the speaker by the door and one man dances in front of it as Kesha sings, "I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums." He then pounds on the door twice with his foot and the two run (shown below). The video gained over 420,000 views in a month.

Spread

The trend spread over the course of the month as more TikTokers uploaded videos doing it. For example, on October 13th, 2021, TikToker^[2] @4figuress posted a video of many men in masks doing the trend, gaining over 4.4 million views in a month (shown below, left). On October 14th, TikToker^[3] @ana_macedoooooooo posted a video doing the trend with a friend but pounding rather lightly, gaining over 500,000 views in a month (shown below, right).

Although the trend often seems to be done by students in dorms or housing complexes, this is not always the case. On October 18th, TikToker^[4] @jessief0sterrr posted a video doing the challenge at a random person's house in the UK (shown below).

Criticism

On October 28th, 2021, Lad Bible^[5] published an article about UK police responding to a number of calls about the prank, alleging that doors were damaged as a result of it. On November 2nd, ABC 27^[6] published a story about a Wilkes-Barre pastor's door being damaged by the prank.

On March 25th, 2023, Global News posted a video to their YouTube^[7] covering an event that took place in a Vancouver Island suburb. After repeated instances of kids knocking and kicking at the doors of residents in a neighborhood populated with senior citizens, one homeowner set up a tripwire to catch their harassers, leading to a scuffle and injuries to both parties.

The video is titled, "TikTok door-knock challenge turns confrontational after homeowner uses tripwire to snare teen," and has over 40,000 views as of nine months.

In January 2024, the Police Department of Friendswood, Texas posted a series of videos to their Facebook^[8] page showing a porch recording of several masked youths coming to a stranger's front door in the middle of the night to kick at it and hammer it with a gallon tub. The post mentions a "Viral TikTok Door Knock Challenge" that encourages "individuals to bang or kick doors in the middle of the night in an effort to startle residents."