ViralWorld

Mannequin Challenge

The archive has not found a surviving copy.

Most viral ever16 of 32

2016·The platform era

A room full of people holding perfectly still while a camera walks through them.

At a glanceThe facts

Spread in
2016
Format
Challenge
Era
The platform era
Where it started
Believed to have been started by students at Edward H. White High School in Jacksonville, Florida
The song
Black Beatles by Rae Sremmurd, which became the usual soundtrack
Origin
Origin not yet established
Available
Not held by ViralWorld

What this wasThe story

Everybody in the room freezes mid-action and a phone walks through the tableau while Black Beatles plays. Students at Edward H. White High School in Jacksonville are credited with starting it, and in November 2016 it went through American sport and celebrity in about a week: the Steelers on the 4th, three NFL teams on the 6th, Beyonce and Adele on the 7th.

Why it matteredWhat changed

For a month in late 2016 groups of people filmed themselves standing perfectly still. The videos were later used in machine-learning research on estimating depth.

TimelineIn order

  1. Picked up

    The Pittsburgh Steelers post a version.1

  2. Mainstream

    Hillary Clinton’s campaign posts one, as do Adele and, together, Beyoncé, Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland.1

  3. Mainstream

    The Boston Pops Orchestra performs one.1

  4. Later

    Google researchers publish work that uses the videos to train software to estimate depth.1

What people misrememberSet straight

Commonly remembered asIt began with the song.

ActuallyThe song was added to versions afterwards and became the usual soundtrack. It did not start the challenge.1

More from hereIn this collection

Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · a moment that changed what the internet did next · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast

Where it came fromWhat we know

Original source uncertain. This is the earliest copy currently known.

No original upload has been established for this record. The index is showing the earliest copy it currently knows about, and says so rather than guessing.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

SourcesWhat was read

  1. Wikipedia — Mannequin Challenge

Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things

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