Social Media can play a large role in the fluency of daily life. Since the beginning of conventional social media usage, new Internet fads have come and gone, and the most recent – The Mannequin Challenge – has circled all around the nooks and crannies of the  web and ended up at WHS.

“I think everyone’s motivation was pizza. I know it was the girls’ motivation behind our win. It got pretty intense towards the end, but it was all worth it because we get the prize,” senior Shaina Kmetz said.

Despite the recent uproar and the intense wrangling of competitive Internet polling, The Mannequin Challenge certainly added an unique twists on the daily school routines. To anyone who was unfortunate enough not to experience the new fad hands on or to anyone who was unfortunate enough not to watch the copious amounts of classroom videos, The Mannequin Challenge is a new video sensation where people stop what they are doing and freeze in place. The recent craze has blown through all stages of social media, reaching into high school classrooms and professional and collegiate level sports teams.

“I think the promotion of The Mannequin Challenge was a great idea for everyone to come together and work towards something. It was something the kids could do for fun. We took a lot of time trying to perfect our video, and we definitely thought it was worth it. We definitely thought it was a winning video, and we thought it was something to be proud of,” girls basketball coach Kim Schmidt said.

Despite the original, pure intentions the administrators had assumed would come out of the competition, the race towards free pizza turned ugly fairly quickly. Numerous amounts and various classes applied their video towards the prize, yet, immediately, there was a strong resentment towards the winning team. There were reports of cheating almost immediately as the polls sent off, and a stalemate commenced. Towards the final hours of the day, the intense competition was limited to Mr. Pagel’s Fifth Hour and the Girls Basketball Team. Despite the ruthless amount of intense voting, the Girls Basketball Team pulled through with a total sum of 6,217 votes. The grand prize was a pizza party. 

“We just wanted to take the dub on this one, but only for a second. We didn’t think we would actually win or anything. We actually started telling people to take the L on this one, and we did take the L, but it’s no big deal. It was cool though. It was fun. Good fun. Pretty good fun, great time,” sophomore Luke Stallings, a student in Pagel’s fifth hour, said.