#TrumpsComingChallenge sends students running for the hills

Caitlin Dickson
·Editor

In the days leading up to the presidential election, the #MannequinChallenge seemed to provide a welcome bit of fun amid national tension. But as President-elect Donald Trump makes his transition toward the White House, trendsetting teens are now ditching the mannequin act and making a run for it.

The #TrumpsComingChallenge has inspired a cascade of videos featuring students screaming, running and, of course, dancing through the halls of high schools and college classrooms around the country.

Some reports have tied the Trump-inspired meme to yet another viral challenge called #AndysComing, in which teens make like the computer-animated toys in “Toy Story” and freeze when they hear a human coming. But it’s striking to watch students leap from their desks and race for the door, hop over fences and even play dead — all in the name of Trump, who once vowed to use a “deportation force” to expel the estimated 11 million people who illegally immigrated to the U.S.

Months before the election, parents, teachers and guidance counselors pointed to Trump’s presidential campaign as the source of heightened anxiety and conflicts in classrooms nationwide. In the wake of Trump’s presidential win last week, college campuses and K-12 schools have been the site of a majority of reported incidents of hate speech, harassment and intimidation related to the election.

According to Texas teen Emi Chavez, who claims to have started the #TrumpsComingChallenge, fear of the president-elect’s immigration plans is exactly what inspired the now-viral sensation.

“Me and my friends are Mexican, but we were born here, and everyone is scared by what Trump said about sending Mexicans back home and all the other racist things as well,” the 16-year-old Chavez told BBC News. “The whole idea was to have some fun, but Trump is a very scary guy to kids of our age because we don’t want our families to get split up. So we were just thinking about how we would just run away from him if he came near.”

See some of the best takes on the #TrumpsComingChallenge below.