The Origins Of The #TrumpsComingChallenge

Another day, another viral challenge sweeping the nation. Much like the stray cat I spent six months trying in vain to lure close enough to pet, teenagers have swiftly moved on to the next big thing. Meanwhile, everyone over the age of 19 is left with the same question: Where does the Trump's Coming Challenge come from?

To be fair, that's assuming you're aware of the challenge in the first place. If you gave up long ago on keeping up with the rapid pace of internet culture, here's a quick primer: The structure of a #TrumpsComing video is simple. Someone holding a camera approaches a group of people. All is well until someone shouts, "Trump is coming!" — after that, the scene descends into pure pandemonium. People fling their backpacks aside and sprint into the distance, or wedge themselves into hidden corners, or play dead on the spot. The hashtag has a few variations, but the most common one appears to be the #TrumpsComingChallenge.

So where did the challenge originate? According to the BBC, Texas student Emi Chavez claims to have started it the day after the election results were announced. On the morning of Nov. 9, he posted a video on Twitter that follows the format of a typical #TrumpsComing video: Someone shouts a warning, and panic ensues. "Show me how you would react if you saw Trump," he tweeted.

His tweet received a decent number of retweets and favorites, but the challenge quickly picked up steam among other users, who began posting their own videos. One of the most popular was posted on Nov. 11 by Twitter user @rudygarzareyna; his entry into the challenge has received more than 900 likes since it was uploaded, and it's appeared in most media coverage of the challenge.

Since then, dozens of similar videos have popped up online.

As Mashable points out, the #TrumpsComing Challenge bears a striking resemblance to the #AndysComing Challenge, which appeared on Vine several years ago and experienced a resurgence in popularity just before the election. The challenge begins in a nearly identical manner to the Trump version: Someone shouts "Andy's coming!" to a group of people on camera. The difference is that rather than running away, everyone goes limp and drops to the ground in a reference to a scene from the 1995 movie Toy Story.

One Twitter user even referenced both challenges in their video.

The #TrumpChallenge is obviously a joke, but it does reflect the way many young people feel about Trump's upcoming term. Exit polls have reflected significant generational divides among voters in the 2016 election, with the majority of young voters favoring Hillary Clinton. Since Clinton conceded the presidency, thousands of students around the country have staged walkouts in protest of Trump's election to office. Most of the #TrumpsComing videos appear to feature high school students, who were probably too young to vote but old enough to be affected by the policies enacted by Trump's administration, especially as they come of age and graduate.

No wonder they're screaming and running for the hills.