Jay Joshi
Amidst the ebb and flow of fads that charge up the Internet from time to time, the Keke or Kiki Challenge seems to be riding the wave of popularity at the moment. The challenge involves getting out of moving car and dancing in the street to the lyrics of the song ‘In my feelings’ by Drake. Not only that, you have to move while dancing to match the velocity of the moving car. Yes, it is risky, but going by the standards of social media, it seems like the hot thing to do today.
The first question here would be, where this challenge come from? Seemingly inspired by Drake’s song, American comedian Shiggy posted a video in June doing the dance. It triggered a global movement. But as the craze spread, Shiggy’s original moves were replaced with far more dangerous ones.
In recent weeks, some unlucky participants have been run over, fined or badly injured. One American teen fractured her skull after attempting the challenge at a roundabout. One woman was robbed as she concentrated on her moves, while other oblivious dancers have tripped over potholes. Police forces across the world are acting to counter the danger posed by the phenomenon. In Egypt, those found doing the challenge and obstructing traffic could be jailed for up to a year. In Abu Dhabi, prosecutors ordered the arrest of three social media personalities for endangering others and themselves during a performance of the dance. According to Gulf News, participating in the challenge constitutes a crime punishable by law. Taking to social media, police in Spain used Facebook to declare that the challenge was getting out of hand and shared a compilation video showing people falling out of vehicles and dancing directly into lampposts. Earlier this month, Turkish singer and actor Hulya Avsar shared a video on Instagram of her doing the challenge. The video, which racked up 3 million views, shows her dancing in the road before chasing after a moving car. According to reports, the star will be fined for endangering traffic.
The challenge has spread to India too. Back home Adah Sharma, Nora Fatehi and Nia Sharma have successfully taken the challenge. Even so, police from across different states around India have swung into action to warn people against taking up the challenge. To that end, Mumbai Police, UP police and Jaipur Police put out some witty tweets, which, while dissuading people from taking the challenge, also spread some good humour.
But Indian twist to Keke challenge did not just end there. A Tamil twitter handle posted a video of a couple of farmers doing the Keke challenge while they ploughed their field. The video seems to be originally posted on the Instagram handle My Village Show (@myvillageshow) and the tags suggest that the two performers are from Telangana. The said video received lots of positive response from social media with Twitter users noting that the two farmers had done the Keke Challenge in the safest way possible, while another urged the rich people driving in cars to try this new way of doing the Challenge.
All things said and done, Keke Challenge is a fad that shall eventually pass. Meanwhile we can only watch what turns the trend takes and what innovative twists peole give the phenomenon. It cannot be denied however that this is a risky and dangerous affair that the wise among us will certainly choose to stay away from.
(scan the QR code to watch the farmers perform the Keke challenge)
