BookRix

 The Charlie Charlie challenge is a divination game in which the putative answer to a yes–no question is found by waiting for a balanced pencil to point towards the word "Yes" or "No" written on a sheet of paper. As with a Magic 8-Ball, most players, typically teenagers, do not sincerely believe in the power of the mechanism. The game is a modern incarnation of an older Spanish game called Juego de la Lapicera ("the Pencil Game"). It was popularized in the English-speaking world in 2015, partly through the hashtag #CharlieCharlieChallenge. On 29 April 2015, an alarmist tabloid television newscast about the game being played in Hato Mayor Province of the Dominican Republic was uploaded to YouTube, and the unintentional humor in the report led to the game trending on Twitter, crossing the language barrier to be played around the world. Charlie makes a killer case study on virality and how things move in and out of languages and cultures online. You'll notice, for instance, a lot of players and reporters talking about the game as if it were new when it's actually—and more interestingly, I think—an old game that has just recently crossed the language divide.