What is the Mario Kart Challenge that everyone is doing on TikTok and how do I do it?

Treadmill + laundry basket = pain

4 years ago

Half of the fun with treadmills has got to be messing about with them – years of hilarious YouTube videos and groan-inducing reruns of You’ve Been Framed have made us well acquainted with this fact. In fact, it’s arguably endlessly more enjoyable to be flung from a treadmill in a laundry basket than it is to exercise. People on TikTok have learnt this in the best way possible, by somehow managing to encompass everything that is great about Mario Kart – no, not yeeting yourself in a laundry basket, but zooming along in ur lil wagon – into a new trend called the Mario Kart Challenge.

But what is the Mario Kart Challenge? How do you do the Mario Kart Challenge? And who first did it before everyone and their dog started doing it on TikTok and seriously injuring themselves?

What is the Mario Kart Challenge?

Scrolling through TikTok nowadays is practically a “people getting pwned” compilation on YouTube, with so many videos of teenagers doing ill-advised activities and seriously hurting themselves. The Mario Kart challenge has only added to this.

The first recorded use of this amazing challenge was uploaded on May 15th 2020 by user @jesse_ring. The video has well over three million likes, and it’s easy to see why. Whether it’s the use of the Rainbow Ride music that set the precedent for all iterations of this challenge to come, or the little cycling helmet, a legend was born that day (bank holiday on May 15th from now on?). Take a look below:

@jesse_ring7 mph kicked my butt. ##mariokart ##foryoupage ##fyp ♬ 123start – cyrusaho

How do you do the Mario Kart Challenge?

For those that somehow aren’t familiar with how this works despite watching the videos (it’s pretty simple, dork) the steps are as follows.

Step 1. Hold laundry basket over treadmill

Step 2. Jump into said laundry basket

Step 3. Get completely murked as you’re hurtled towards your living room wall

And that’s pretty much it. This challenge succeeds previous misuses of treadmills for their desired purpose, including jumping onto them with an exercise ball on your stomach, or lining up a load of treats and placing your mouth at the end to catch them. We really have advanced so far as mankind.

If reading the word “challenge” so many times hasn’t made it sound like a made-up word by now then great, here’s some of the best versions of the Mario Kart Challenge to keep you entertained. Once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, but they’re seriously so good it doesn’t matter:

@gracetiktokstarhad to add some extra protection because 6 mph really got her… ##mariokart ##zoom ##fyp ##foryou ##EatEmUp ##InTheHouseparty ♬ 123start – cyrusaho

@loicsuberville5 ruined my ankles… 10 destroyed my knees. 8 was fun. ##mariokartchallenge ##quarantineolympics ##boredinthehouse ##fy ##fyp ##foryoupage ♬ 123start – cyrusaho