Top 10 viral challenges of 2020

• During the month of March, more than 6 million Spanish boys and girls had to leave their classrooms and stay at home for a total of 2,328 hours due to the pandemic. 
• More than 4.5 million households with children under 14 years of age had to find the best way to hang out and survive living together 24/7. 
• Keeping a roll of toilet paper in the air like juggling a football (#ToiletRollChallenge), painting your finger with red lipstick and then smearing it on someone’s forehead while shouting Simba! (#SimbaChallenge), or staying on a plank by making quick elbow and leg movements to music (#PlankChallenge) are some of the most viral according to an analysis carried out by Qustodio. 

This year will be remembered with virtual memories. New technologies have helped us to be more connected than ever, entertaining everyone during lockdowns, especially children. In fact, in Spain, during the month of March, more than 6 million children had to leave their classrooms and stay at home for 97 days: a total of 2,328 hours. This translates into more than 4.5 million households with children under 14 years of age, according to INE data, who had to find a way to pass the time and survive all living under the same roof 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Tik Tok took advantage of this down time, with its well-known #challenges, a hashtag that currently has almost 111 billion views. 

With more than 800 million users around the world, in just 4 years, TikTok has managed to break the barriers of confinement with dances, exercises, imitation of childhood photos, recipes and impossible challenges, thus becoming the number 1 app for entertainment in Spain getting more than 14 million downloads in the month of March alone. 

Qustodio, the leader in online security and digital wellbeing for families, has made a compilation of the 10 most viral challenges of 2020 that have united families and got even the most uncoordinated among us to dance. How many of them do you know? 

1. #PlankChallenge. After several days and even months of not practicing physical activity, the challenge of the plank became one of the most famous, reaching a total of 2.4 billion views. The challenge is to stay on the plank while adding quick elbow and leg movements to the beat of Pretty Girl by Maggie Linderman.

2. #PassTheBrush. People of all ages, nationalities and genders have participated in this challenge. So much so, that it has 1.6 billion views. It is the challenge that gave popular rise to passing something to another person without being in the same space. The video begins with a person showing her most natural look, they run a makeup brush over their face, cover the camera, and boom! they appear transformed in their best clothes. They, then, throw the brush to the next participant, being able to create a common video with the same common thread.

3. #GetBusyChallenge. Get Busy is a popular song by Jamaican artist Sean Paul from 2003 that has been recovered on the platform for an almost impossible dance challenge with extremely fast movements. It is one of the challenges with the highest views, having reached 756 million views.

4. #FlipTheSwitchChallenge. A mirror, a mobile phone, two people and two different looks are all you need for this challenge. There are more than 741 views that surround these videos in which the two participants, after turning the light off and on, exchange their clothes with each other.

5. #SimbaChallenge. A challenge that takes us back to 1994, when Rafiki from The Lion King shows the future king, Simba, to the animal kingdom. By painting their finger with red lipstick and marking the forehead of someone else, thousands of people represented this historic Disney moment on the TikTok platform, accumulating 571 million views.

6. #ImJustaKidChallenge. With the Simple Plan song ‘I’m Just a Kid’ as the soundtrack and more than 528 million views in the app, thousands of families around the world came together to imitate their childhood photographs. It is one of the most endearing challenges of all 2020.

7. #ToiletRollChallenge. One of the images that marked the beginning of the confinement was the shortage of toilet paper in supermarkets. Perhaps this challenge had something to do with it, since it consisted of juggling a toilet paper roll like a football/soccer ball 10 times. It has a total of 460 million views.

8. #EmojiChallenge. There are 172 million views of this famous challenge that consists of people simulating emojis.

9. #GestureChallenge. Right hand, left hand, users have to replicate hand emojis in time to the beat of ‘Y2k & Bbono $ Lalala’. It has accumulated more than 73 million and a half views.

10. #NananaChallenge. Starring the song Bonde R300 and ZondZilla, this dance challenge consists of two people facing each other and joining their left feet, then their right feet, and so on. Each user gives their video a personal touch and that is why it has accumulated almost 3 million views on TikTok alone. 

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