What is Smash or Pass?

Smash or pass? is a game in which players evaluate the sexual desirability of an individual, declaring whether they would hypothetically want to "smash" them (have sex with them) or "pass" (choose not to). The subject of discussion may be a celebrity, a fictional character, or an individual known personally to the players.

The game has seen spikes of popularity on the Internet, including on Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. It has also been used as a form of sexual harassment, including through the uploading of photographs of people without their consent.

The name comes from a slang meaning of smash meaning "have casual sex", which is attested from the early 2000s. The game's terminology is also used metaphorically to evaluate things outside the sexual sphere, like food or festival performances.

Smash or pass? originated as a party game, but has become popular on the Internet; it has been described as an internet fad. Vice News reported that the game "has mysterious origins" and speculated that it may have originated from other risqué games played by adolescents, including spin the bottle, truth or dare?, and fuck, marry, kill.

The game appeared on internet forums in mid-2010, the same year in which the phrase smash or pass was first defined on Urban Dictionary. Based on Google Trends data, interest in the game was low until around 2016, when searches spiked, coinciding with a rise in the game's popularity on YouTube.

Starting in January 2022, the game became part of a trend on TikTok in which users decide whether to "smash or pass" fictional characters from TikTok character generators. Popular characters have included Marvel Universe characters, Disney characters, and cartoon parents.

The game's popularity among German speakers has led to the verb smash entering the German lexicon as smashen; in 2022 it was chosen as youth word of the year in a Langenscheidt poll.

The Daily Dot called the game "the sleepover game of the internet age". Steph Panecasio of CNET said of the TikTok trend: "There's no untoward behavior, this is all in the name of good fun."

American security scholar Joan Johnson-Freese cited the game, along with Hot or Not, as examples of the objectification of women prevalent in Western society. American communication researchers Nathian Shae Rodriguez and Terri Hernandez also cited the phrase "smash or pass" as an example of objectification of women related to hegemonic masculinity.

Arielle Richards of The Daily Dot said that "the real beauty of smash or pass is in its simplicity", but acknowledged that it "can be, and has been, misused in harmful ways". Richards compared the game to FaceMash, a predecessor to Facebook, in which users rated the appearance of female Harvard students.

Our Smash or Pass game offers a fun and safe way to play with fictional characters from various categories including Pokémon, celebrities, anime characters, gaming characters, and movie characters.

1. Choose your preferred card pack from our selection
2. Select your orientation to get personalized content
3. View character cards and decide: Smash or Pass
4. Check the rankings to see popular choices
5. Discover new characters and favorites