It’s surprising that at this stage of life, we still have to explain it, but… Drinking excessive alcohol, especially when it exceeds a certain level of alcohol content, is not good. Putting your life at risk for a TikTok challenge based on consuming such type of alcohol is even worse. Dying for fifteen seconds of video, something that could only happen in 2023. And yet, here we are.
A glass of wine doesn’t hurt
Let’s start by talking about Baijiu, a Chinese distilled liquor that has an alcohol content ranging from 28% to 65% and, despite being rarely consumed outside of China, outsells any other spirit: five billion liters annually, which is three times the total vodka consumption on the planet. It is a cheap yet influential liquor in China, where it is a tradition to serve the highest-quality Baijiu to judge someone’s loyalty before starting a business. According to Chinese culture, you only truly know someone when they are drunk.
However, this wasn’t the experience for Sanqiange, a Chinese influencer also known as “Brother Three Thousand,” who on May 16th participated in a live stream on Douyin, the country’s version of TikTok that cannot be downloaded in the rest of the world. During the livestream, Sanqiange took part in something called a “PK,” a dare game where he rapidly consumed at least four bottles of Baijiu, one after another.
The livestream ended at 1 a.m., and he went to sleep. Twelve hours later, when his family found him, he was dead. Sanqiange’s death is shocking because doing livestreams while drinking was not something new for him; it was part of his regular content, similar to the “King’s League” in Spain or going to Andorra.
The death of Wang, the person behind the name, has sparked a debate about what streamers can or cannot do and how to regulate an industry that is both lucrative and young. It highlights the challenges of navigating a multimillion-dollar industry that is still relatively new, and the mixture of these factors can result in unfortunate outcomes like this.
