Teenage boy dies while trying to fake his own suicide for a TikTok video

A Pakistani teenager has died after a dangerous TikTok stunt took a tragic turn.

The 19-year-old, named only as Hamidullah, got his friends to film him as he pretended to kill himself by holding a gun to his head.

Thinking the pistol wasn’t loaded he pulled the trigger, and died instantly, authorities in Pakistan’s Swat Valley district confirmed.

“This boy was pretending to commit suicide with a loaded pistol. He put the gun on his head and then it suddenly misfired,” a senior police official told the Express Tribune.

“The unfortunate youngster died on the spot as he was directly hit in the head. There was no chance of survival.”

Officials told AFP that the teenager was “locally famous and active on TikTok.”

Hamdidullah had more than 8,000 followers on the platform and had posted nearly 600 clips on his page before his untimely death, according to the news agency.

Most of the clips featured him playing tricks on friends or documenting life in the picturesque valley.

Despite the horrific outcome of his final intended prank, the video was still posted online, The Express Tribune reports.

It’s by no means the first time a social media stunt has come to a devastating end.

According to AFP, at least two other accidental suicides have been linked to TikTok in the southern Asian country.

In 2020, a security guard was reportedly killed in Karachi while playing with his rifle as he recorded a clip for the app, and another teenager died in Rawalpindi at the start of the year after being struck by a train while filming.

Joshua Haileyesus died in hospital nearly three weeks after he was found unconscious on the bathroom floorHaileyesus Zeryihun/GoFundMe

It comes just months after Joshua Haileyesus, 12, from Colorado, died after attempting the so-called “blackout challenge.”

The school boy’s family believe he was trying to choke himself with a shoelace in an attempt at the hugely risky trend.

A statement released by TikTok at the time expressed “profound sympathies” for Joshua and his family.

“At TikTok, we have no higher priority than protecting the safety of our community, and content that promotes or glorifies dangerous behavior is strictly prohibited and promptly removed to prevent it from becoming a trend on our platform,” it read.

“We also block related hashtags and searches to discourage people from participating in or sharing potentially dangerous content.”