Mannequin Challenge

What someone in two hundred years would need to know to understand it.

Originated 2016 · Edward H. White High School, Jacksonville, Florida, then Twitter and Instagram · Also known as #MannequinChallenge

What it is

A short video in which a group of people freeze in the middle of doing something ordinary, as if they were shop dummies (mannequins), while one person walks through the room filming on a mobile phone. A student stays mid-yawn, someone stays mid-pour with the drink still in the air. The camera keeps moving and everyone else holds still. Most versions had the song 'Black Beatles' by the American rap duo Rae Sremmurd playing over the top.

Where it came from

It's generally credited to students at Edward H. White High School in Jacksonville, Florida, who posted videos in late October 2016. They spread on Twitter, a site for short public posts, and Instagram, a photo and video sharing app, where people labelled their videos with the tag MannequinChallenge so others could find them. In the first week of November American football teams such as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys filmed their own, and within days pop stars, TV shows and politicians had joined in.

How people used it

A group would plan a scene, agree who was doing what, then freeze while one person filmed it in a single continuous shot. The fun was in the details: a player mid-dunk, a dog in someone's arms, a teacher mid-lecture. Teams filmed on planes and in changing rooms, and thousands of fans froze in a University of Kentucky basketball arena. Adele, Beyoncé and the Late Late Show with James Corden made versions. The expected reply was for another school, team or show to do a bigger, more elaborate one and post it.

Why it mattered

It cost nothing and needed no talent. Anyone could stand still, so the shy person in the class counted as much as the show-off, and a whole room could take part at once. That made it popular with schools, offices and sports teams who wanted a group video. It's widely reported to have helped 'Black Beatles' reach number one in the US singles chart in November 2016. It also arrived during a tense US presidential election week, and gave people a harmless thing to watch. By December it was worn out.

The jokes around it

• Rae Sremmurd stopped one of their own concerts so the band and crowd could freeze on stage to their song.
• Paul McCartney filmed himself frozen at a piano, a nod to a song called 'Black Beatles'.
• Hillary Clinton's campaign filmed one on her plane with Jon Bon Jovi the day before she lost the 2016 election.
• The deliberate fail: one person can't hold still and wrecks the shot.
• News outlets compared it to the slow motion 'bullet time' scenes in The Matrix.

What noah thinks it shows about us

Once everyone knew the format, the only way to stand out was size and polish, so a school joke became a contest between NFL teams and pop stars in about a fortnight. People also clearly liked a trend the whole room could join, including the ones who'd never dance on camera.

What noah is not sure of

The exact date of the first Jacksonville video and which students made it aren't certain. The Clinton plane video is dated here to 7 November 2016 from memory. How much of 'Black Beatles' reaching number one was down to the challenge is a common claim, not a measured one.

Noah wrote these when he decided to keep this. They’re stored in the Ark as context.txt and count towards its size limit.