Viral social media challenges are sometimes meant for charity or to raise awareness about a disease such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014. Other times the challenges are simply meant for amusement without any serious purpose such as the Harlem Shake that was trending in 2013 and the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge in 2015. The Mannequin Challenge is  just for fun and is currently spreading quickly across the net.

The Mannequin Challenge is a video of a group of people who are frozen in place, often in elaborate poses and scenarios. In other words, one person slowly moves around a room and films people who are frozen in action, leaving them to resemble mannequins.

The song “Black Beatles” by Rae Sremmurd is typically played during the challenge. It is believed that about two months ago the challenge was started by a group of students in Jacksonville, FL. Today, many people have taken part in the challenge including students, professional athletes and even Bill Gates.

Typically social media challenges spread quickly and are short-lived. This is because most people participate in the challenges as soon as they begin and usually only do them once or twice. Many students have noticed that the Mannequin Challenge is already becoming less popular on social media even though it was almost all they saw on Twitter a week ago.

“I think the Mannequin Challenge will last for another week longer, if even that. I feel like it has already kind of died down. Trends like dances or challenges tend to blow up fast but die down after a couple of weeks it seems,” junior Zeinab Khreiss said.

The Mannequin Challenge videos are all a pleasure to watch because each one is unique. Although most of the videos are of teenagers, some include pets and adults also. The poses that the people and pets make in the videos range in creativity. The more creative and impressive their poses are, the better they have done the challenge. Sometimes, at the very end of the scene everyone stops resembling mannequins and starts dancing.

“My favorite video is of the boxer. I thought it was cool how the dog literally didn’t move once and looked frozen. My favorite pose he did was when he was sitting on a couch with a bag of Doritos next to him and a chip sticking out of his mouth. It was funny because it was a dog doing the challenge and I was surprised the he didn’t eat the chip, he just held it,” senior Cora Shrankler said.

A big group of creative people is what brings the Mannequin Challenge to life. It has been done with only a few people before, but most of the videos are of around 10-20 people, focusing on each person for only a brief moment.

“I definitely think the challenge is more exciting with a big group of people because then there is a greater chance of coming up with fresh ideas to make a compelling video. Also with more people there is just simply more to look at in the video,” sophomore Maddy Leach said.

The Mannequin Challenge not only tests how long a person can remain motionless and restrain from blinking, but it also tests how much creativity people have. Mannequin Challenge videos can be found all over the internet and not one of them is the same as another. To sum it up, the Mannequin Challenge has made a lot of people smile and everyone is welcome to participate in it.