Stop, Collaborate & Listen — The Newest Viral Trend Is Ridiculously Amazing

Every few years, a viral challenge takes over our screens. Past trends have included planking, extreme phone pinching, the Harlem Shake, and the ALS ice bucket challenge. According to Select All, there's a new trend in town — and it's a lot more static than its predecessors. The challenge has been been dubbed The Mannequin Challenge and it involves a large group of people frozen in place, doing as a mannequin does. Music usually plays as a camera pans over the group. The song of choice appears to be "Black Beatles" by Rae Sremmurd, but some Twitter users have opted for different beats. What determines who wins the challenge? The rubric here seems to grade on number of participants and intricacy of position. The most intense challengers are essentially doing the work of thespians — they paint a scene with their bodies.

Mashable reports that Twitter user @pvrity__ was the first to lay the mannequin challenge gauntlet on October 26:

Since then, we've seen classroom mannequins:

And scenes of locker-room life:

One group took to the courts to recreate the action of a basketball practice.

Even Rae Sremmurd took notice — the hip-hop duo had the entire crowd at one of their concerts perform the challenge.

So far, the challenge seems to be most popular with the high school demographic — with one notable exception. Antonio Brown, a wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers, took a whack at it with his teammates. (Their tableau enacts a postgame press conference to no music.)

Welcome to the viral world, Mannequin Challenge. May you live longer than a month.