As we embrace the dawn of 2025, we have witnessed yet another shocking story in the death of a young influencer known as “Bank Leicester” who was challenged to drink a bottle of whisky for money. His departure raises many questions in this society where every poor person struggles - even risking their life - to earn a living.
Twenty-seven-year-old Thanakarn Kanthi, or Bank Leicester as he was known on social media, was a hard-working man. He sold garlands and did all sorts of work to support his sick grandmother with whom he had lived from an early age. He died from participating in a party that he attended as an influencer.
There, he was challenged to finish drinking whisky in exchange for 30,000 baht.
Yet the whisky challenge was not the only degrading or humiliating act he had agreed to just to give some money to his grandmother who had no idea how he got the funds to support her. The phrase “human zoo” is not an exaggeration where Bank’s life is concerned.
He had done it all, eating a big amount of wasabi, eating lubricant gel and even dog faeces. Bank did it all just to take care of his sick grandma.
Many people called him an influencer not least because he gained popularity for those human zoo-kind of videos. If we were shocked that there is a young man out there who agreed to do so many degrading acts for money, we were even more stunned by the number of likes and shares.
Yes, there are people who love watching this kind of content in our society. Calling it brain rot would be an understatement as, in the case of this unfortunate man, it was more a matter of moral rot.
Bank accepted all challenges not just because he was poor, but also because he was autistic, or so some believe, which could make him even more vulnerable in this twisted society.
To outsiders, most of his videos, did not appear to be typical challenge content; they were more akin to bullying, a practice unfortunately common in schools and elsewhere.
The public has shared their sorrow and many celebrities condemned the act upon hearing the news of his death. This is a life lost for 30,000 baht! How fragile our society is!
Extending support and offering condolences is nice, but this society must focus on pure goodness to end such depraved acts right away. If the social media platforms cannot safeguard against this, we, as the audience, can collectively reject this degrading content - whether it is brain rot or moral rot. We are human and we can and must do better.
Creators of daring or exploitative content must stop playing with someone’s life to gain engagement. If they continue without an audience, this content should disappear from our view and the metaverse.
Any support for this kind of content means you are a cheerleader of the human zoo. Watching and “liking” such videos implies tacit approval of this degradation, and in Bank’s case, makes one complicit.
This story brings to the mind of this writer an old Hollywood movie “The Accused” where onlookers of a rape were also punished by law. Should it not be the same for those who encourage the bullying or human zoo type of content?
“Every human is born equal” will remain just a phrase in the human rights bible unless we, as moral beings, act to make it a reality. We may not all face the same risks of death, but human dignity should be universal, defined not by material wealth but by moral principles.
In the case of Bank, police have investigated and those who were involved in this “deadly” event have been condemned by the public.
But we need more action to bring us back to a human society - not a human zoo. We need the country’s regulator to do better. We need more people to say “no” to this content.
We need people to aggressively help eradicate this morally rotten content. And we need to act now. Let Ban’s death be the catalyst and protect other possible victims, and please don’t let this case be just another sad case of 2024. Make it the last case of a human zoo in Thailand.
