The main attractions of this type of video are its dissemination power and entertainment value. According to statistics, the cumulative views of videos with the hashtag “# smash or pass with Friends” on the TikTok platform have exceeded 1.3 billion times (data from TikTok Creator Portal in March 2024). The Average user Watch Time reached 1 minute and 48 seconds, far exceeding the benchmark value of 65 seconds for entertainment videos on the platform (approximately 52% higher). The production threshold for this type of content is extremely low: only 3-4 people are needed (common scale) and a smart phone (device cost 0 yuan), and the production time for a single video is usually less than 15 minutes (including shooting and editing), yet it can attract a fan growth rate of up to 2.4% (Social Blade analyzes data for accounts with 10,000 to 100,000 fans). The average number of likes for the hit videos exceeded 870,000 (with a peak case of over 5 million), the median Comment Ratio was 4.5% (the benchmark value was 1.8%), and the density of users actively @ their friends was approximately 22 times per thousand plays (” Try it with your friends quickly! “) The invitation-like mode is adopted to form an efficient virus transmission mechanism (K factor >1.1).
The cost of social risk is often underestimated. A 2023 study by the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford shows that when groups play smash or pass games, even if participants indicate that it is “just for entertainment”, the probability of generating negative emotions (such as embarrassment and shame) still increases significantly by 38% (compared to playing alone). If a participant’s appearance score is the lowest in the group (the probability of this situation is approximately 20%-25%), their Self-Denial Intensity Scale will increase by an average of 21 percentage points in the coming week. A typical case is a report by ITV News in the UK in 2024: After four 15-year-old students shot such videos, the one with the lowest score was continuously ridiculed online (the probability of the video being leaked without permission was estimated at 18%), and eventually triggered school psychological counseling intervention (the score on the psychological assessment scale reached the critical value of anxiety disorder). The differences in aesthetic standards among friends lead to the dispersion of scores (the standard deviation of scores within a group is often greater than 15%), which can easily plant anchor points of conflicts in intimate relationships (the risk rate of an increase in the Friendship Strain Index is approximately 17%).
Privacy and compliance loopholes pose potential legal risks. When a multi-person smash or pass video involves a friend’s photo (with a probability of up to 40% without the individual’s explicit authorization), it violates Article 6 of the GDPR (the basis for legal processing) and CCPA 1798.100 (the consumer’s right to know). In the 2023 Seoul Central District Court ruling (Case No. 2023GaHap 789), a blogger was ordered to pay 15 million won (approximately $11,000) in compensation for mental distress and have the content forcibly deleted for uploading a video containing the ratings of friends (with 720,000 views). The device’s camera may also accidentally record environmentally sensitive information (such as location coordinates and home furnishings). After the video is compressed by the platform, the resolution remains at 1280×720 pixels (HD level), ensuring that the physical privacy exposure accuracy of the participants reaches a range of 90 square meters (based on background recognition technology test data).
The ethical risks of minors’ participation are even more severe. Neuroscience research has confirmed that the maturity of the prefrontal cortex in the adolescent brain (aged 14-17) is only 70% (Nature 2022), and its sensitivity to peer evaluation is 2.3 times that of adults. If smash or pass videos are spread on campus social media (such as Snapchat class groups with a coverage rate of about 60%), the probability of them being used as cyberbullying tools increases by 55% (eSafety Commissioner Australia data statistics). This led to a short-term sharp increase of 29% in the Absenteeism Rate of victims. The EU DSA directive explicitly requires platforms to enable 18+ Age Gating for “body evaluation classified content”, but the bypass rate still reaches 35% (algorithm detection error rate 11%, false data deception rate 24%), indicating a significant deviation in actual protection effectiveness.
From the perspective of actual performance evaluation, although multiplayer smash or pass games seem enjoyable, their social costs (the potential risk of friendship wear and tear), psychological stress (an average heart rate increase of 15 beats per minute), and legal risks (the median cost of a single infringement lawsuit of 5,000) far exceed the instantaneous traffic revenue (the CPM value per thousand plays is approximately 2.5). In 95% of cases, the Positive Affect Scale increment (+31%) and the enhancement of social connection (+40%) generated by real interaction activities among friends (such as collaborative games, outdoor sports) far exceed those of such videos. The technical ethical boundaries of entertainment demand selection always need to be proactively calibrated.