The True Story Behind The Start Of The Korean Fire Noodles Challenge

Korean Fire Noodles are infamous for being so brutally spicy that even those who love spicy food have found eating these noodles a challenge. The noodles, however, are at the center of the viral “Fire Noodles Challenge,” a challenge so intense that people all over the world have tried taking on the heat. But like any viral challenge, there’s a little more to the origin of the challenge than you may realize.

In the first episode of Dive Studios‘ I Think You’re Dope with Eric Nam, Eric Nam dove into the topic of viral videos with his friends Josh and Ollie from Korean Englishman.

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So I mean, I feel like most people, singers, YouTubers, artists, or actors have that one video that really took them to the next level. What was the one that you can pinpoint was a really big changing factor.

— Eric Nam

While they’ve seen their fair share of viral hits on their channel, Josh and Ollie immediately pinpointed which video took them to the next level — the legendary “Fire Noodles Challenge.” With Eric asking for a walkthrough of this video, Josh and Ollie revealed that this challenge had a bit of a backstory that started with a different unboxing video!

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There’s a backstory. So after the first viral kind of hit a bunch of people from all over Korea had sent us boxes. We had like 60 huge boxes. We opened them and uploaded that on YouTube and it hit the Naver homepage. It was the first time back in like 2013 I’d ever seen a YouTube video linked on the Naver homepage.

— Josh

With their unboxing video being such a big hit, Josh and Ollie wanted to do something with some of the items they received, especially with the item they received the most of!

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That was nuts. It blew up! The one thing that was in most of the boxes, and we were like people really want us to try this, was Fire Noodles. This spicy new noodle. At the time it was brand new. No one had any idea really what this thing was. But I guess a lot of our fans were like, ‘Here’s this thing and it’s supposed to be spicy. It would be funny to see them try it.’

— Josh

As Fire Noodles were new at the time, they decided to gather some friends and try finishing off a pot of noodles in front of famous London landmarks!

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So we went out with a bunch of our friends and we were like, ‘Hey, let’s do this. This is going to be even funnier if we do it in front of London landmarks to bring this like collision of cultures.’ And we just tried it. We each tried to finish a pot by ourselves. We called it the ‘Fire Noodles Challenge.’

— Josh

From that challenge between friends, Josh and Ollie’s “Fire Noodles Challenge” became a viral challenge on YouTube that is still going strong today! Find out more about the origins of the legendary spicy noodle challenge and more below:

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