Craziest Water Bottle Flips Caught On Camera

Unless you're the parent or teachers of teenagers, you may be unfamiliar with this new trend of kids flipping water bottles up in the air to see if they can make them land perfectly standing up. Perhaps this is what happens when kids these days put down their damn phones for a minute after seeing one too many fake "Creepy clown sighting" videos. Good luck playing flip-cup against the graduating class of 2030. Now, you're probably asking yourself some questions about what exactly this is, and how insane these flips can get. Luckily, we have answers, and possibly some explanations ...

Don't worry, the collective unconscious of every bored kid across the nation didn't converge in some kind of psychic epiphany. Like all classic teen trends of today, the bottle flipping phenomenon originated on Vine and YouTube. A kid got away with doing a bottle flip at his school talent show, and the trend immediately escalated out of control, much like the uproarious applause of his peers. Once some YouTubers started using their version of the bottle flip to gain popularity, the practice was officially a super-trend.

But not all of the videos are as believable as some kid getting tremendous applause for a simple little flip ...

This kid does a pretty job explaining it in his YouTube video, but there is actually some pretty complex physics behind the perfect bottle flip. Basically, angular momentum produced by both you and the water in the bottle moves the bottle's center of gravity enough to not only flip the thing, but to also give it a perfect 10 landing worthy of the Plastic Olympics.

Wow, damn. Who would have thought that frat bros and teenagers were actually experimenting with complex science? But a bunch of these ridiculous flips cannot be explained away with simple egghead physics ...

Here's a prime example of a bottle flip that's just plain ridiculous. This dude from How Ridiculous throws a bottle of water up into the air and successfully lands it on a lamppost that's at least 30 feet high. It looks absolutely incredible, and the video this stunt was featured in earned over three million views as a result.

Just one problem: what happened was ... basically impossible. A perfect landing that high up? Did he try a billion times before he could get it to land? Or could he possibly be using some tricky video editing or magnets? We suspect some foul play here, even though there is some science going on here ...

Really? Really? As with before, we see another epic landing on a metal surface from How Ridiculous, this time to the top of a McDonald's sign that can't be less than 40 feet tall. That's great and all, but couldn't this also be achieved by starting your video with a long piece of fishing line attached to the bottle, safely planted on the sign, pulled back, and caught? Reverse the video, and you'll find that could well have been how they achieved the impossible here. Or, of course, magnets. The shot is conveniently far enough away that your average viewer wouldn't even notice an extra little piece of metal hanging off the bottom.

Speaking of magnets, we tried this bottle-flipping thing out for ourselves, to see if we actually need sick skills, or just a basic understanding of how science actually works ...

OOOHHHHHH! WE LANDED IT UPSIDE DOWN ON A LIGHT FIXTURE! That's insane, bro! Except no, we didn't. We duct taped a magnet to the bottom of the bottle, and now it'll stick to any metal surface, because science. We even compiled a compilation video of more magnet magic, which you can click on right above these words.

Oh hey, and guess what kids? The videos in the collaboration were 100% submitted by 100% teachers. Good luck trying to pull this crap at school tomorrow, because your teachers are onto you. Your parents told you to stop, and even the New York Times has spoken, and now the teachers are in on it. Sorry kids, but it's time to find a new hobby.

OK, now that the bottle-flipping myth has almost certainly been busted, let's look at some cases where people might actually be flipping legitimately ...

The young kids of That's Amazing probably have a bunch of homework they should be doing instead, but regardless, we're actually impressed by their bottle-flipping skills. All their videos are on point, shot with camera angles close enough to verify the authenticity of their flips, and the flips could conceivably work off-camera. After all, gentle flips onto a table a foot away from you is much less science-fiction than chucking a bottle to the top of the Statue of Liberty, or whatever else the viral bros will try next.

It's one thing to toss a bottle into the air and make it flip and land facing up, but the parkour guys at Thunder Freerunning take their flips to the next level. Instead of flipping the bottle, these flippers flip their ENTIRE BODIES while securely holding onto a water bottle the whole time. As they land, their bottles also land safely in the intended upright position. Is parkour an Olympic sport yet? No? Then let's watch together as they continue to one-up every silly viral trend that makes its way onto our timelines, until the Olympic Committee wakes up and gives them the respect they deserve.

While flat surfaces have escalated onto almost-certainly impossible flips onto lampposts, flag posts, and McDonald's signs, some skateboarders decided to take it to a new level: their favorite mobile surface. The Skateboard Bottle Flip takes the physics of traditional bottle flipping and gives it the one finger you're not allowed to put up at a Chuck E. Cheese. Not only are they flipping bottles, but they can actually make them land on skateboards!

Yes, the boards are rolling along slowly, but it's still incredibly impressive, and shot close-up enough that you can tell it's probably real. They even showcased a ton of their failed flips, just to assure you they're not trying to bamboozle you into thinking their one-take flip-gods or anything. These flippers are shredding some major gnar in ways gnar should have probably never been shredded in the first place. Do a kick-flip, little bottle-bro! Oh wait, you're a bottle — you can't shred any gnar, unless said gnar is dehydration.

Finally, we have what might be the most satisfying bottle-flip of them all: the Hydraulic Press Bottle Flip Challenge. This guy flips a bottle onto a table maybe a foot away from him (while wearing a water-filled condom on his head, because anything + Condom Challenge = ridiculous viral gold). After several failed flips, he successfully lands the bottle perfectly. But rather than woo and hoot and holler like so many fratbros before him, this guy celebrates the one way most people who are sick of the trend would want to: he smashes the bottle in a hydraulics press, splashing water all over the press and himself.

And then, he pops his water-condom hat, further drenching himself because what's a joke like bottle-flipping without an amazing punchline?