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What Is a Challenge, Really? - The Cut

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Today, it’s posting a hot selfie. Do you accept? Photo: @kerrywashington, @khloekardashian/Instagram

According to most dictionaries and accepted linguistic norms, the word challenge indicates a difficult, complex task or situation to be conquered; a charged invitation to action; or a rejoinder to someone’s argument. According to the informal tenets of social media, however, the word challenge typically means “posting a photo of yourself in a certain context, oftentimes for an ostensibly good cause, ideally looking attractive.” Some recent examples include: the pillow challenge, which saw celebs posing with a pillow belted to their front, cheekily naked but for their downy shields; the 2009 vs. 2019 challenge, which really highlights hotness accumulated over time; and today’s #WomenSupportingWomen #ChallengeAccepted challenge, which asks all the ladies to bravely post the most flattering black-and-white selfie in their camera rolls, for the sisterhood.

If you are confused by the premise, don’t worry. Many people seem to be. It’s unclear how the challenge started or what it’s supposed to achieve, but so far at least 3 million posts have accumulated under the hashtag nonetheless. Let’s lean in for a closer look.

What is #WomenSupportingWomen? What does it mean?

On Monday, a raft of celebs began posting well-lit photos of themselves, always in black-and-white and usually with a vaguely inspiring caption espousing the blanket virtues of women in general and maybe two to three women in particular.

“Thank you to all the magical women in my life for the endless love and support. ✨ May we all continue to shine a light on one another,” Reese Witherspoon, for example, captioned her contribution. “This is what sisterhood is all about.”

“To all my Queens,” Khloé Kardashian added. “Let’s spread love and remember to be a little kinder to one another.”

“Challenge accepted ladies!” Eva Longoria wrote. “Women supporting women! So many women to tag and thank!”

But, seriously, what does that mean?

Per an Instagram spokesperson, this hashtag is “meant to celebrate strength, spread love, and remind all women that supporting each other is everything.” Go to the landing page for #WomenSupportingWomen and #ChallengeAccepted; scroll through the sexy sepia. Are you feeling strong, friend?

Okay, but where did it begin? And how did it spread so far?

It’s still unclear how the challenge started. An Instagram representative told the New York Times that the first post “for this current cycle of the challenge” emerged a week and a half ago on the page of the Brazilian journalist Ana Paula Padrão. But whence did this current cycle emerge? A PR and “influencer marketing manager” at the social-media firm Later speculated to the Times that it may be the result of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s electric speech on the House floor last week, in which she addressed being called a “fucking bitch” by a male colleague. Footage of the speech apparently created an engagement spike around feminism and women’s empowerment, and now we are here.

The tag-you’re-it nature of the challenge means it has fully infiltrated normal-person Instagram, too: Friends tagging friends tagging friends into infinity, urging them to share their own tastefully hot selfies and tap a handful of other strong, independent women to carry the torch. Of course, they must also add the hashtags #WomenSupportingWomen and #ChallengeAccepted for optimal empowerment and visibility on the Discover page.

Is it … meant to be feminism?

On its face, possibly, maybe? Depends on who you ask? All available information indicates that the challenge has no concrete goal beyond spreading good vibes and @ing a few women you like. But as with the “Imagine” video certain celebs used to convey that #WeAreOne amid a pandemic and its attendant economic crisis, or the #itakeresponsibility anti-racism PSA, the social-justice message feels a little hollow when the main focus is on participants’ flawless faces. I mean, #WomenSupportingWomen could actually be — as supermodel Cindy Crawford captioned her glamour shot — “a simple way to lift each other up,” but this challenge mainly seems to be about the poster lifting herself up. Mostly, this challenge — like so many Instagram challenges, really — is about looking like a snack. Which, fair enough. Hot-girl summer, as they say.

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What Is a Challenge, Really? - The Cut
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