LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Michelle Obama pose for the mannequin challenge in the White House.
Photo courtesy of Cleveland Cavaliers

Slowly the camera pans through a room of stone like figures. You hear the slow electronic beat flood the video followed by the lyrics, “black beatles in the city be back immediately to confiscate the moneys.” You look closely and notice that the stone like figures are in fact people trapped in what seems like a game of freeze dance gone bad. The video fades without a single flinch of a muscle. You’re confused by what you just watched and ask yourself, “What the heck is this.” You just experienced your first mannequin challenge video.

The mannequin challenge has made its way to the top of a very extensive list of viral Internet challenges. Social media seems to be thriving with funny pranks or challenges done for literally no reason other than pure entertainment. Whether it’s the cinnamon challenge, the Harlem shake, planking, the running man challenge, Ju Ju on that beat, or even the Kylie Jenner lip challenge the social media world never fails to entertain its users with these entertaining skits. The mannequin challenge is the latest viral challenge in which a video is taken of a room full of people who stand, frozen in a position, while Rae Sremmurd’s rap song “Black Beatles” simultaneously plays in the background.

The video craze seems to have started in high school classrooms across the nations. The name of the challenge comes from the act of actually freezing in the video and acting as if you were a mannequin. Some celebrities have even taken the initiative of creating their own mannequin challenge videos such as Blac Chyna who mannequin challenge-d her own labor of her new baby girl. Blac Chyna is one of many celebrities including Hillary Clinton, Adele, Kevin Hart, Ellen DeGeneres, and even Michelle Obama alongside the Cleveland Cavaliers who have accepted the challenge.

Like most of the other viral challenges the mannequin challenge is likely to fade out soon, but for now it climbs the viral charts of various social media platforms.

Jessica Cascone’17, Features Editor