Weekly post 3
The idea of a challenge has changed over the years that I have been on the internet. The ice bucket challenge is one that I myself participated in back in middle school *cringe*. I also fondly remember the cinnamon challenge (not a participant), chubby bunny challenge (yep, I did that one), and the don’t judge challenge (sadly I have to admit I did this one too). These challenges were mostly harmless things to do at a sleepover and film for all your middle school buddies to see, once you put a sepia filter over it of course. The cinnamon challenge certainly had its repercussions with people getting hurt from it, but it wasn’t offensive or upsetting, it was just kind of stupid. The chubby bunny challenge was totally innocent, but still could cause some injury or choking, similar to the cinnamon challenge. The issues with the don’t judge challenge is that the stereotypes that participants used as their “ugly” before pictures usually included missing teeth, acne, a unibrow, and messy hair. Not too long after this challenge started, people realized that it was a very superficial challenge, and it was sort of insensitive to those who were missing teeth, had acne, or had a unibrow. These were generally harmless challenges, and even the negative portions of them weren’t a huge deal, nothing like making a trend out of the literal Holocaust.
The fact that TikTok had a challenge circulating to pretend to be in the Holocaust is just appalling. This also reminds me of a Snapchat show that showed what it would be like if a girl in the Holocaust had Snapchat. It was called “Eva Stories” and there was one season of it in January of 2020. This was really confusing to me. We are taught and should know the history of the Holocaust, and there is no way that kids my age and younger don’t know about the horrors that were caused by Nazis and the holocaust. I can understand how kids on TikTok could get caught up in a challenge, want to dress up and do a little amateur acting. I can see that portion, like some of the ones where kids will cosplay, or dress in period clothes to do acting or dance challenges, but it is so strange that anyone, even children, would think it is okay to reenact such a disgusting and sad part of the world’s history without consideration for how offensive and insensitive it could be. In addition to that, how could the major social media platform Snapchat let a show go out about what it would be like to have Snapchat during the Holocaust? I must admit, I only watched the first episode of it to figure out if it was actually something to be mad about, and it could be compared to a film like Jojo Rabbit or Schindler’s List, but something about it seems wrong. Historical fiction films can also create controversy, some people saw Jojo Rabbit as bad because you shouldn’t make Hitler funny, yet it was tastefully made and the irony of Taika Waititi being a jewish man playing Hitler somewhat excused the humorous nature in my eyes. It is important to teach hard subjects, and sometimes even make them fun, however it needs to be done very gently and it needs to be briefed that the themes will be hard.
It is hard to place a line between education, entertainment, and ignorance. The TikTok Holocaust challenge is outright insensitive, and the people who participated in it obviously fall far over the line of ignorance. I think it’s especially important to be careful of sensitive subjects like the Holocaust and not create content that offends people, and if the content does offend anyone, to just realize that it was not the right thing to do and take it down.
