Jackie McGregor - Thunder bolts and lightning, very, very frightening: the viral prank​​​​​​​ terrifying NI residents

I looked around furtively to see if anyone was watching, the coast was clear. I couldn’t fight the urge tugging at my feet any longer, off I went, skipping across the hopscotch grid on the pavement. I giggled, feeling like a child again.

How innocent those days now seem. Back before the internet, when we made our own entertainment, usually on the street, bikes abandoned by our sides, drawing on the hot concrete with chalk.

Whoever had created this grid in 2026 had also drawn flowers in pastels. We used to do that, too. It was so heartwarming and nostalgic to see. I wondered if someone’s mum or gran had dislodged kids from behind their screens, forced them outside and given them a “pastimes of my youth” experience?

Back then, we would play with old rope, arms aching keeping the rhythm going, as friends skipped in and out, singing “My Aunt Jane.”

We’d also spend hours playing two-ball, which involved juggling two tennis balls against a wall and performing tricks whilst singing, “One, two, three O’Leary.” After that we’d play, “In and Out the Dusty Bluebells,” the goal of the game was to bring everyone together and form a human chain.

Sometimes, naughtiness overtook us and we craved excitement. This might lead to a game of “Thunder and Lightning,” where we’d knock on a neighbour’s door like thunder and run away like lightening, hearts pounding in our chests at the prospect of being caught.

It was also known to some as “Belfast,” as you’d ring the bell and run away fast. It was a harmless, prank.

Forward to today and a new version of this game is being played which has mutated into something far more aggressive.

Residents in Northern Ireland are being tormented with what’s known as the “Door Kick Challenge” - a viral prank that’s spread across the US and UK, made popular by TikTok.

It involves people violently kicking front doors while filming the banging, the damage and the reactions of terrified homeowners. It’s all done for online validation and “likes”- the oxygen of the social media generation.

Residents in the province are catching these assailants on their doorbell cameras, striking in the dead of night, hoods up and faces covered, booting at their doors. Imagine the terror of an elderly person alone, enduring this.

The “pranksters” have been known to do severe damage, sometimes kicking doors off their hinges.

As a child, the excitement of playing thunder and lightning lay in the escape; if the door opened, the game ended. Today, the thrill begins when the door opens and residents’ terror is digitally recorded.

Back then, thunder and lightning was a silly lark. Our chalk paintings were washed away in the rain; our world was left as we’d found it. Today’s games leave a permanent stain of someone else’s terror, archived online forever.

People in distress are decreasingly viewed with compassion, and more as content for internet entertainment, in a society that has lost the privacy and camaraderie of those precious days when we played “In and Out the Dusty Bluebells.”