With the election past us ... wait, let me savor those five words for just a minute ... Ahhhh.
With the election past us, can we stop with the seriousness and just be silly for a few seconds?
A few seconds is all we need to take part in the latest social media craze. A few seconds, a few friends (optional), someone to record the shenanigans (or lack thereof) and some music.
That is all that is required to take part in the Mannequin Challenge, which originated last month.
MannequinChallenge, 2016's answer to 2013's "Harlem Shake," is not so challenging. You strike a pose. And you don't move. And that's it. Well, just about. You make sure your inactivity is captured on video and posted for all to admire. You must have a jam playing in the background, and not just any song. For whatever reason, it has got to be the moody, reefer-and-expletive-filled "Black Beatles" by hip-hoppers Rae Sremmurd featuring Gucci Mane.
Here are some of the forced hook lyrics ... at least the ones I can print.
That girl is a real crowd pleaser
Small world, all her friends know of me
Young bull living like an old geezer
Quick release the cash, watch it fall slowly
Frat girls still tryna get even
Haters mad for whatever reason
Smoke in the air, binge drinking
They lose it when the DJ drops the needle
What in the world does any of that mean? I don't know.
And what does it mean for you to have that semi-horrible but semi-hypnotic music playing and have someone record you and your squad as you remain motionless? I don't know that either.
Shrug. It's an internet challenge (like the #KylieJennerLipChallenge, where people tried ridiculous, even hazardous methods to plump their lips to unnatural proportions). You don't question the nonexistent logic. You just do it because everyone else is doing it and until everyone starts doing something else.
Here are just some of the folks who have performed the #MannequinChallenge: every high school student in the entire country, comedian Kevin Hart, the hosts of Good Morning America, the ladies of Destiny's Child (even Beyonce), various college football teams and professional football teams like the New York Giants, the Buffalo Bills, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Dallas Cowboys (not just the players, but the executives, including owner Jerry Jones himself).
Where did the challenge come from? Not Rae Sremmurd, who put out SremmLife 2, the album that features the "Black Beatles" song in August, although the group has done its own rendition in concert. Ed H. White High School in Jacksonville, Fla., claims ownership, recently tweeting, "The #MannequinChallenge was created by our very own students at Ed White HS!" Don't they seem awfully proud that their students achieved this stand-there-and-achieve-nothing phenomenon?
I personally have my own #MannequinChallenge planned for this lazy Sunday.
Of course my version involves doing nothing while camped out on the couch in front of a basic cable showing of Mannequin, that cheesy 1987 romantic comedy with a post-St. Elmo's Fire Andrew McCarthy playing a dummy who falls in love with a mannequin, played by a pre-Sex-and-the-City Kim Cattrall. Instead of posing and posting a video set to "Black Beatles," I'll just snooze to the movie's theme song, Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now."
"And we can build this dream together," email:
jchristman@arkansasonline.com
Spin Cycle is a smirk at pop culture. You can hear Jennifer on Little Rock's KURB-FM, B98.5 (B98.com), from 5:30 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday.
Style on 11/13/2016