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Stretch, dance, and flex! The first social media challenge of 2021 is here. Created by a TikTok user @omgitsashleigh in 2020 and recreated by DaniLeigh, and Vanessa Hudgens , in 2021 the #FlexibilityChallenge seems to be a great way to keep ourselves entertained during the quarantine. After the Dominican-American singer, songwriter, rapper, and dancer posted on her Instagram account a video of her dancing to the rhythm of “Monique” and showing her flexibility skills; later, actress Vanessa Hudgens jumped into the trend to give it a try.
The Flexibility Challenge consists of dancing to your preferred song while wearing a hooded sweatshirt. After covering your head with the hood, you need to lift your leg to your head, place your foot inside the hoodie, and in one quick movement, altogether remove the garment. The funniest part of this challenge is how your hair reacts to it. “#flexibilitychallenge.. first take I didn’t really kno my hair was gon look like that 😭😭,” DaniLeigh captioned her video.
“Looked too fun and had to try. Lol @iamdanileigh,” wrote Vanessa Hudgens, who strategically kept her flyaways in place with a headband.
There are still tons of challenges waiting to be created; some of them would be worthy of recreation and others a big no; however, while we patiently wait for our social media accounts to be filled with viral content, let’s revisit the biggest Instagram trends of 2020.
Do you remember the Dolly Parton Challenge? The singer inspired the viral meme of posting a four-picture collage with the photos we share on different social media platforms. Here, people needed to share an image in professional attire for their LinkedIn account, a casual picture for Facebook, an inspirational photo for Instagram, and a sexy snap for Tinder.
Once the quarantine became mandatory, the Pillow Challenge became a thing. To Anne Hathaway and many more fashion enthusiasts, pillows transformed into a Insta-worthy outfit — a fluffy minidress with a belt.
Not all the 2020 challenges were for fun, some had deeper purposes, like the #BlackoutTuesday, a call to action challenge with the intention to pause cultural activities and redirect our focus and attention to bigger causes. Unfortunately, the challenge create a lot of confusion, and people started merging both Black Lives Matter hashtags and BLM to solidarize with the victims of police brutality and facial profiling. What was intended to be a wake up call ended up being a call to “inaction” during a critical time.
The “Challenge Accepted” was another viral trending hashtag that lost its meaning while crossing the oceans—born in Turkey to raise awareness about the horrible femicides in that nation, women started flooding Instagram with black and white photos of themselves without knowing precisely the origin and believing it was linked to female empowerment.
Other challenges also included the “My Plans Vs. 2020,” “Celebrity Elf On The Shelf,” and the “Reese Witherspoon Challenge.” Share your favorite challenges with us on Twitter and Instagram.