The Maltese government is attempting to kickstart a new online challenge, in which nations film themselves cutting power to their citizens’ homes and businesses.
While it was widely believed that recent power cuts in Malta have been due to increased demand caused by air conditioners, it turns out the government has been deliberately staging the outages to try and go viral.
The aim of the ‘Power Cut Challenge’, as the government is calling it, is to film yourself causing as many country-wide power outages as possible in the space of a week.
There is a catch, however: the outages must not trigger civil disorder. If a riot does occur, the country is disqualified.
The challenge was announced a few days ago in a video on Instagram by Maltese energy minister Joe Mizzi, filmed from inside the Delimara power station.
“Yo yo, it’s ya boi J Mizzle here laying down a new viral challenge for my international mandem,” he began before explaining the rules.
“Alright fam, let’s get unlit,” he concluded before pulling a lever to cut off all power to Sliema.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said he was confident Malta would come out on top.
“The amount of shit that Maltese people are willing to put up with, we’ve got this in the bag,” he said.
“Now if it was the ‘Disincentivise People From Using Their Cars Challenge’, that would be a whole different ball game. The world’s entire stock of tear gas wouldn’t be enough to deal with the fallout from that.”
