The Best of the Mannequin Challenge

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Take a break from election debates, depressing news, and thoughts of moving to Canada. The internet’s newest video meme (remember Planking and the Harlem Shake?) is here to entertain and delight. Known as the #mannequinchallenge, this newest internet trend has taken hold amongst teens and adults alike. It requires a group of people to hold perfectly still in a variety of poses, from simple to wildly complicated, while a cameraman walks through and films the whole thing.


This is the first known #mannequinchallenge video, posted on Twitter on October 26 by user @pvrity___, and it spawned a whole new generation of videos!

The video shows a group of teens, credited by the twitter user @pvrity___ as Emili Allen, Jalen Hill, Bre’Onna Brewer, A’laynah Bailey, Deryk Hill, Kiyani Williams, and Jada Owens, holding a variety of different mannequin-esque poses. The video was quickly picked up by news outlets around the world as it went viral and inspired thousands of other videos.

The underlying theme for most of the #mannequinchallenge videos is the song “Black Beatles” from the Hip-Hop duo Rae Sremmurd. The challenge has skyrocketed their single, and the group surprised their audience at a recent concert with a LIVE rendition of the mannequin challenge.

The trend has obviously been picked up by high school students around the world, turning out some pretty massive versions of the challenge, like this one from Robert Vela High School in Texas.

It hasn’t stopped at high school students though! The NFL has accepted the challenge, as the New York Giants posted this video on their Twitter:

And celebs have taken up the challenge, like this video posted by Ellen DeGeneres, with the whole staff of The Ellen Show:

#MannequinChallenge

A video posted by Ellen (@theellenshow) on

However, as cool as all of these are, nothing tops the video posted by PoleDance411 on instagram, showing multiple pole dancers holding serious poses! That had to take some incredible strength and skill to pull that off.

Whatever the reason, the #mannequinchallenge is here to stay. Which video is your favorite?

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