Beat the Earth's Gravitational Pull— Broom Challenge on Twitter

To overthrow the rumor said by NASA “Feb. 10 is the only day without a gravitational pull.” TheBroom Challenge seemed to be the biggest and most popular movement on Twitter in 2020.

The movement of Broomstick Challenge.

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/2020/02/11/old-viral-broomchallenge-sweeps-internet-once-again/

(Image courtesy of Omne)

Hoax Claimed

The broomstick Challenge has become one of the most popular activities on Twitter this year. However, no one actually knows how it became so trendy among users on Twitter. There’s a video posted on February 10th on Twitter that went viral on Monday morning showing that a girl is making a broom standing without any interference plus the caption “NASA claimed that the gravitational pull will disappear only on February 10th.” As soon as the video was uploaded, it caught people’s attention and curiosity and gathered almost 6.2 million viewers to the video.

Spreading fake news seemed to be an easier way to catch people’s attention, especially in the case of The Broomstick Challenge. Since the texts were “stated by NASA”, people tended to focus on it seriously. All of a sudden, the caption of the video successfully gathered and aroused the interests of social media users, for they wondered if they had the same ability of the girl who posted the video on Twitter. Consequently, if they succeed in this experiment of broom-standing, they get satisfied and also feel that they are on the trend.

The first tester of the Broomstick Challenge.

(Image courtesy of Mashable)

Herd Behavior on Social Media

Social media has become one of the powerful and functional ways to tie human emotion and life together closely. When people want to perform a movement, social media is said to be the platform that spreads information with fast speed. Besides, unwilling to be labeled not to catch up with the trend, there is no need to mention that most social media users will follow the Internet trends as much possible as they can. The “challenge” movement is the most frequent cause to be seen on social media because of herd behavior, which plays a crucial part on social media, and it is also a point that makes people behave actively on the platforms.

Social media users tend to focus on the target and give responses related to the latest issue although they don’t know what the intention is or the purpose they serve. In the case of the Broomstick Challenge, most challengers only want to overthrow the idea “attributed to NASA” without knowing if the announcement is true or not.

People try to challenge the Broomstick Challenge and post it on Twitter to prove that they succeed.

(Image courtesy of The Washington Post)

Learning the experience behind The Groomstick Challenge

Social media platforms impact users’ thoughts and cognition thoroughly. The video spreads widely on Twitter; however, few people check if the source is reliable or not. The challenge also influences some celebrities’ attention which increases the desire for people to give the challenge a try. They record the process of how they succeed in the challenge and post it on Twitter with the specific hashtag and caption for the video or the photo. Thus, it becomes a trend on Twitter at a very sudden.

The Broomstick Challenge can also be seen as the action of spreading fake news on social media. As soon as the video soared up to 6.2 million viewers on Twitter immediately, NASA clarified that the news of gravitational pull on the day is not true and they are out of responsibility for the challenge. Luckily, the challenge did not cause any danger to others, and it focuses on the funny challenge only among human beings.

Lauren Jauregui who is a former Fifth Harmony member also takes the challenge on Twitter which increases her fans’ interest to give it a try at the same time.

(Image courtesy of Mashable)

The importance of checking the truth of the sources

The challenge itself not only reveals how people behave vigorously on social media but it also shows the potential influence on humans in daily life. In this case, few people find it weird after the highly discussed challenge on Twitter. Therefore, next time, maybe contact NASA before embarking on an otherworldly mission.