About
Don’t Judge Challenge (#DontJudgeChallenge) is a selfie video fad in which the participant records oneself at a close-up angle while wearing heavy facial makeup to appear as unattractive as possible, before transitioning into another self-portrait in which the subject is shown in their most photogenic form.
Origin
The challenge reportedly began as a hashtag campaign to combat the widespread phenomenon of body shaming on the Internet, with some of its earliest instances submitted to Instagram sometime between late June and early July 2015.
The identity of the hashtag creator or the location of the original instance remains unclear; however, Chicago Tribune has cited British beauty blogger Em Ford’s makeup tutorial video titled “YOULOOKDISGUSTING” as a potential source of trigger that may have given rise to the hashtag.
Precursor
Prior to the emergence of #DontJudgeChallenge on Instagram, there have been numerous selfie trends centered around the theme of intentionally making oneself look unattractive, such as the Sellotape Selfie Challenge and Kylie Jenner Challenge, not to mention the Pretty Girls, Ugly Faces photo fad that juxtaposes one’s least attractive-looking self-portrait with his or her most photogentic counterpart.
Spread
During the first weekend of July 2015, #DontJudgeChallenge quickly snowballed into a full-fledged multi-platform video fad, generating nearly 170,000 user-submitted videos on Instagram, more than 1.7 million mentions on Twitter, according to Topsy Analytics, and over 11,600 clip submissions on Vine within the first week of its takeoff. Meanwhile, as the hashtag continued to take stronghold on other major media-sharing platforms, many observers and social media commentators began expressing skepticism in regard to the effectiveness of the campaign’s mission, particularly from those affiliated with the social justice blogosphere blogging."
Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1]Instagram – Search Results for #DontJudgeChallenge
[2]Twitter – Search Results for #DontJudgeChallenge
[3]Twitter – Search Results for #DontJudgeChallange
[4]Facebook – Search Results for #DontJudgeChallenge
[5]Vine – Search Results for #DontJudgeChallenge
[6]MyPaleSkin – You Look Disgusting
[7]Chicago Tribune – Don’t Judge Challenge: Why teens are getting ‘ugly’ for social media
[8]The Daily What – Hashtag of the Day: Teens Are Giving Themselves Unibrows for the #DontJudgeChallenge
[9]Business Insider – A new Instagram challenge has thousands of teens posting dramatic videos of themselves ‘looking ugly’
[10]ABC News – Viral Social Media Trend Protests Body Shaming and Promotes Acceptance
[11]Refinery29 – The Internet Is Not Happy About The #DontJudgeChallenge
[12]The Mirror – Don’t Judge Challenge: Teens declare war on body shaming by making themselves up to ‘look ugly’
[12]Twitter – @MLawrJasp’s Tweet
[13]Yahoo News – Backlash After Teens Post ‘Ugly’ Photos of Themselves for Body-Shaming Challenge
[14]MTV– The ‘Don’t Judge Challenge’ Is Actually Really Judgmental
[15]Facebook – Don’t Judge Challenge
[16]USA Today – Teens get ugly on Instagram for ’Don’t Judge’ challenge
[17]Reddit – What is the ’Don’t Judge Challenge?’
[18]GlobalGrind – Introducing The #DontJudgeChallenge
[19]YouTube – Search Results for ’Don’t Judge Challenge’
[20]Instagram – Search Results for #dontjudgeabookbyitscover
[21]Instagram – Search Results for #waynereillychallenge