TikTok Flamethrower Challenge — Patient with facial injuries lying in a hospital ICU bed surrounded by medical equipment and monitors

TikTok Flamethrower Challenge

2023viral videodead

Published October 26, 2026

The TikTok Flamethrower Challenge, also known as the Lighter Challenge, is a rumored dare in which a person sprays aerosol paint through a lit lighter to create a makeshift torch. It drew national attention in late April 2023 after 16-year-old North Carolina athlete Mason Dark suffered burns across roughly 80 percent of his body attempting it, though Insider later reported in May 2023 that no such trend could be found on TikTok.

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Overview

The Flamethrower Challenge, also called the Lighter Challenge, describes the act of discharging aerosol spray paint across the flame of a lighter so the propellant ignites into a jet of fire1. Reporters tied it to TikTok in April 2023 after Wake Forest, North Carolina teenager Mason Dark was hospitalized with third-degree burns while attempting the stunt with friends2. News segments and tabloid write-ups treated the dare as an active social media trend aimed at teens3.

A week after the first reports, Insider cast doubt on the premise. Journalist Kieran Press-Reynolds searched TikTok and found no circulating challenge or hashtag matching the described format, and a TikTok spokesperson said flatly that the stunt was not a challenge on the platform4. The spokesperson added that spray paint flame videos had existed on YouTube for roughly a decade before the Dark story broke4.

What survived the news cycle was less a meme template than a case study in how one injury can be packaged as a trend. TikTok commentary accounts, including @baldnewsnetwork, framed the stunt as an old party trick that predated the app, saying it had circulated on MySpace and Facebook years earlier5.

Origin & Background

Platform
News coverage (WRAL) / TikTok (alleged)
Date
2023

The story broke on April 28th, 2023, when WRAL News in Raleigh published a segment about 16-year-old Heritage High School football player Mason Dark, who was being treated at the UNC Burn Center after a spray paint and lighter stunt went wrong the previous Sunday2. According to his mother Holli Dark, friends heard a "big boom," after which Mason ran outside, pulled off his burning shirt and jumped into a nearby river to try to cool the burns2. Doctors later determined the injuries covered about 76 percent of his body, including third-degree burns in a T-shape on his back where his shirt had stuck to the skin2.

Holli Dark told WRAL the stunt was tied to TikTok, saying, "I guess kids have been doing this a long time"2. A GoFundMe for Mason's medical costs raised more than $49,000 within a week of launch1. WRAL's accompanying YouTube report included footage of Mason stepping out of the river after the fire6.

How It Spread

National outlets picked up the WRAL segment within 24 hours. On April 29th, 2023, TMZ ran a short item framing the incident as a TikTok flamethrower stunt gone wrong1. FOX 32 Chicago aired its own segment the same week, interviewing Bark Technologies parenting officer Titania Jordan about monitoring apps parents could use to spot risky posts before kids attempted them3.

TikTok commentary creators amplified the framing even as the platform denied the trend existed. On April 29th, 2023, @baldnewsnetwork posted a video telling followers that the dare had actually started on MySpace and Facebook years earlier, not on TikTok5. On May 2nd, Insider published its skeptical follow-up, reporting that searches on TikTok produced no evidence of a widespread challenge and that the platform already placed warnings on potentially dangerous videos4.

After the Insider piece, media coverage of the "challenge" faded quickly. The Dark family's GoFundMe kept collecting donations through the summer of 2023, but the story settled into the familiar pattern of a moral-panic TikTok trend that was mostly built out of a single injury and a parent's quote14.

Timeline

2023-04-23

Mason Dark is burned at home in Wake Forest, North Carolina after attempting the spray paint and lighter stunt with friends.

2023-04-28

WRAL News publishes the first report on Dark's injuries and his mother's claim that the dare came from TikTok.

2023-04-29

TMZ picks up the story, and TikToker @baldnewsnetwork posts a commentary video saying the trick predates TikTok.

2023-05-02

Insider reports it cannot find the challenge on TikTok, and a TikTok spokesperson denies that it is a platform trend.

Frequently Asked Questions