The Mannequin Challenge is a viral Internet video trend which became popular in November 2016. In this challenge, participants have to stay still in action like a mannequin while a moving camera films them, often with the song "Black Beatles" by Rae Sremmurd playing in the background. [1] [2] The hashtag #MannequinChallenge was used for popular social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. It is believed that the phenomenon was started by students at a high school in Jacksonville, Florida. [3] The initial posting has inspired works by other groups, especially professional athletes and sports teams, who have posted increasingly complex and elaborate videos.
News outlets have compared the videos to bullet time scenes from science fiction films such as The Matrix , X-Men: Days of Future Past , X-Men: Apocalypse , Lost in Space or Buffalo '66 . Meanwhile, the participatory nature of the challenge on social media makes it similar to memes such as Makankosappo or the Harlem Shake. [4] [5] Others have noted similarities with the HBO TV series Westworld , which debuted around the same time, where robotic hosts can be stopped in their tracks. [6]
In December 2016, the trend winded down and became not popular by the end of 2016.
![]() |
A number of notable sports teams, including both collegiate and professional, as well as sports personalities, have engaged in the challenge. [7] Notable instances of sport-figure participation include:
Television broadcasters who have participated include:
College football teams that posted videos include Old Dominion University, [7] Temple University, [33] University of Pittsburgh, [37] Louisiana State University. [34] [38]
Once many versions of the challenge began surfacing with Rae Sremmurd's "Black Beatles" as the background music, Rae Sremmurd paused a concert to do a Mannequin Challenge video live on stage. [39] [40]
Dancing With the Stars in the U.S. created a video with cast and crew on the dance floor that was posted to dancer Val Chmerkovskiy's Instagram account. [41]
Musical artists who participated included:
Ellen DeGeneres and Warren Beatty created a video of a table tennis game and posted it to Instagram. [52]
The Late Late Show with James Corden created an elaborate video of more than 2 minutes and 30 seconds, that involved the entire crew, backstage area and studio audience. [53]
Blac Chyna and Rob Kardashian created a video in the hospital delivery room. [54]
The cast of Saturday Night Live created a video along with Kristen Wiig as a promotion for the season's November 19, 2016 episode. [55]
First Lady Michelle Obama froze for the Mannequin Challenge together with LeBron James and the rest of the Cleveland Cavaliers during their visit to the White House to be honored for their NBA Championship victory. [56]
On November 18, 2016, the erotic dance troupe Chippendales uploaded their Challenge on their social medias. [57] [58] [59] On November 22, actress Tracee Ellis Ross coordinated a video before the awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House, which included celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres, Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Bill Gates, Diana Ross, Rita Wilson, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Frank Gehry. [60]
On December 6, celebrity attendees at the 2016 British Fashion Awards participated in the challenge as Gigi Hadid won the award for International Model of the Year. [61] Anna Wintour, Donatella Versace, Christopher Bailey, Franca Sozzani, Kate Moss, Yolanda Foster and Naomi Campbell were also part of it.[ citation needed ]
On December 14, the Boston Pops Orchestra and Conductor Keith Lockhart participated in the challenge during a rehearsal for the orchestra's 43rd Annual Holiday Pops Season and posted a video on YouTube.[ citation needed ]
On December 21, the crew of Food Network's Beat Bobby Flay participated in the challenge and posted a video on Facebook [ citation needed ]
On November 7, the night before election day, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton participated in a video with Jon Bon Jovi, Bill Clinton, Huma Abedin and various staffers on her campaign plane. [62] [63]
First Lady Michelle Obama posed for a video with the NBA champions Cleveland Cavaliers at the White House. [64] [65]
Former Managing Director of World Bank Group and current Indonesian Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, did the challenge after delivering a lecture at Padjadjaran University, along with the Rector and thousands of students whom attended the lecture. [66]
On December 13, Westmount, Quebec's city council became the first municipality to release a mannequin challenge filmed in the council chambers. [67] The video features eight council members and the mayor frozen during a seemingly chaotic council meeting.
On November 10, film makers Simone Shepherd, Kevalena Everett and Todd Anthony made a series of videos that re-created scenes related to the Black Lives Matter movement, as a promotional teaser for their feature film Black in Blue . [68] [69]
In November 2016, the Revolutionaries of Syria Media Office, a Syrian media organisation, published a video showing two White Helmet volunteers performing a staged rescue operation for the meme. The organisation apologised for their volunteers' error of judgement and said it had not shared the recording on their official channels. [70] [71]
Videos of the challenge uploaded to YouTube have been used to advance machine learning research in depth prediction. [72] [73]
FEMM was a Japanese electronic dance music duo, composed of RiRi and LuLa. The group signed with the Avex Group Holdings Inc. sub-record label Maximum10 and their distributing label Avex Music Creative Inc.; they signed a deal with London label JPU Records for European distribution. After a series of singles between 2013 and 2014, FEMM released their debut studio album Femm-Isation in October 2014 as a digital release. FEMM's major debut and first physical release, Pow!/L.C.S., was released in February 2016.
A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email. For a video to be shareable or spreadable, it must focus on the social logics and cultural practices that have enabled and popularized these new platforms.
Michelle "Shelly" Jenneke is an Australian hurdler and model. She won a silver medal for the 100 m hurdles at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics and the 100 m hurdles at the 2016 Australian Athletics Championships to qualify for the Rio Olympic Games. In 2012, she received worldwide media attention after her pre-race warm-up dance went viral on the internet and was featured in the 2013 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
Baracksdubs is a popular YouTube channel and series that uses Barack Obama speeches to create cover songs, generally of popular songs. The channel was created by Fadi Saleh as a then-freshman student of the University of Tennessee. The channel was a Maker Studios partner from 2012 to 2015, when Saleh formed his own company, Spare Time Entertainment.
The Harlem Shake is an Internet meme in the form of a video in which a group of people dance to a short excerpt from the song "Harlem Shake". The meme became viral in early February 2013, with thousands of "Harlem Shake" videos being made and uploaded to YouTube every day at the height of its popularity.
YouTube Rewind was an annual video series that was produced by YouTube and Portal A Interactive from 2010 to 2019. The videos were summaries of each year's viral videos, events, trends, and music. The series' annual installments were uploaded onto YouTube's official channel.
Rae Sremmurd is an American hip hop duo consisting of brothers Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi, both of whom originate from Tupelo, Mississippi. They signed a recording contract with record producer Mike WiLL Made-It's label EarDrummers Records, an imprint of Interscope Records as the first act to sign with the label in 2013. The duo rose to mainstream prominence following the release of their 2014 singles "No Flex Zone," "No Type" and "Throw Sum Mo". Each received triple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), peaked within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, and promoted the release of their debut studio album, SremmLife (2015), which itself received double platinum certification. Their 2016 single, "Black Beatles" peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100 and preceded the release of their second album SremmLife 2 (2016), which saw continued commercial success. During that same year, the duo also formed their own record label, SremmLife Crew Records.
The Ice Bucket Challenge, sometimes called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, is an activity involving the pouring of a bucket of ice water over a person's head, either by another person or self-administered, to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and encourage donations to research. The challenge was co-founded by Pat Quinn and Pete Frates; it went viral on social media during July–August 2014. In the United States, many people participated for the ALS Association, and in the United Kingdom, many people participated for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, although some individuals opted to donate their money from the Ice Bucket Challenge to other organizations.
"Do It Again" is a song by American singer Pia Mia featuring fellow American singer Chris Brown and American rapper Tyga. It was released on May 4, 2015, through Wolfpack and Interscope Records. Mia recorded "Do It Again" in 2013, when she decided to sample J Boog's 2011 song "Let's Do It Again" after attending his concert in Guam. Brown and Tyga asked Mia to be included on the song when it was played in a studio session in 2014. It was written by Mia and Tyga alongside George Veikoso, Marc Griffin, and producer Nic Nac. "Do It Again" is a pop and R&B song, with a mix of hip hop and electronic dance music genres. The lyrics include references to Guamanian culture such as Two Lovers Point. Music critics described it as a "summer song".
SremmLife 2 is the second studio album by American hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd. It was released on August 12, 2016, by Ear Drummer Records and Interscope Records. The album serves as a sequel to their previous studio effort, SremmLife (2015). It features guest appearances from Kodak Black, Gucci Mane, Juicy J, Lil Jon and Bobo Swae.
"Trumpets" is a single by DJ Sak Noel and Salvi featuring Jamaican singer Sean Paul. The song was released on April 25, 2016, on iTunes. The official audio was released on March 13, 2016, and its music video was released on April 24, 2016.
"Black Beatles" is a song by American hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd featuring American rapper Gucci Mane. Produced by Mike Will Made It, it was released on September 13, 2016, by EarDrummers and Interscope Records as the third single from their second studio album SremmLife 2.
"Black Barbies" is a song by rapper Nicki Minaj and producer Mike Will Made It. It is a remix of the song "Black Beatles", which was originally produced by Mike Will Made It and performed by Rae Sremmurd featuring Gucci Mane. An unmixed version of the song was initially released to SoundCloud by Minaj on November 15, 2016. "Black Barbies" was later mixed and released officially for digital purchase on November 30, 2016.
Carpool Karaoke is a recurring segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden, in which host James Corden invites famous musical guests to sing along to their songs with him whilst traveling in a car driven by Corden on a planned route usually in Los Angeles, usually under the pretense of needing to get to work and preferring to use the high-occupancy carpool vehicle lane, or the pretext of needing directions from a local when in a new town, such as London, Liverpool, New York City or Las Vegas.
George Kusunoki Miller, known professionally as Joji and formerly as Filthy Frank and Pink Guy, is a Japanese-Australian singer-songwriter, rapper, and record producer. Miller's music has been described as a mix between R&B, lo-fi, and trip hop.
Morgan Bullock is an American Irish dancer, known for her Irish dance remix of rapper Megan Thee Stallion's song "Savage", which went viral on TikTok and Instagram in May 2020.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)