These YouTubers Thought It Was A Great Idea To Eat A Whole Cactus

​A whole subset of YouTube, as many of us know, is dedicated to viral challenges: from people snorting condoms, swallowing cinnamon powder, scarfing down bananas and soda or the classic gallon of milk chug. But what would possess any person — let alone over a dozen — to chomp through a whole cactus, needles and all?

As far as we can tell, the cactus trend began with Children of Poseidon's scream-filled video, who also challenged La Fênix to do the same. Several other YouTuber's cite his and La Fênix's videos as the inspiration for their own cactus challenge attempts. 

Here, La Fênix complete the challenge, albeit a little more gracefully.

The trend seems to have really taken off after competitive eater LA Beast repeated the feat, garnering well over 3 million views in the process. 

Madman Shoenice — who's most famous for his ability to power through massive bottles of booze — was next to hop on the prickly bandwagon.

Followed a few days later by Reyde and Dan. 

A month later, Junior Haha upped the ante by eating two at once. 

Zombie tried to power through a massive cactus (the title is no exaggeration) but ultimately failed despite his best efforts. 

And then K-Lee of Devonshire Idiot made Zombie look like a total chump. 

We won't include Max Contra's video, as he doesn't appear to swallow any of the cactus, so Chuck From The Bronx was the next to participate. He decided to cover his face in rubber bands first, but we're not sure if that has any effect on one's ability to eat. 

Chili Beast's challenge was by far the most grueling — not only did he eat a damn cactus, but he covered it in chocolate scorpion hot sauce and then dusted it with carolina reaper powder (currently the Guinness World Record for hottest pepper, at a peak of 2.2 million Scoville Units).

This YouTuber ends up with a bloody tongue. 

And just last week another contender came along. Somehow this attempt was the most upsetting, simply because he seems to be having a relatively good time. 

Not to be a thorn in your side, but we really can't stress enough how much you should not be eating a whole cactus. All the views in the world won't pay for new intestines.