Bernie Sanders supporters are taking an extremely painful Internet challenge
Screenshots from four different #BernChallenge videos. [Photo: FeelTheBernChallenge.com]
Dousing yourself with ice water for charity is one thing, but would you down a glass of Tabasco for your candidate?
Supporters of the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders are showing their support with “#BernChallenge” videos, in which they swallow peppers or hot sauce or do strenuous exercises to show why they “feel the Bern.” Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is currently the top rival of frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
According to a website created for the #BernChallenge, it was “inspired by the incredibly successful ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.” The first video on the #BernChallenge Facebook page was posted by Zak Kilberg on Nov. 28. It featured Kilberg, a Sanders campaign volunteer from North Carolina, eating an “organic jalapeno pepper” while grimacing, choking and discussing his desire to “get big money out of politics with Bernie” and fight “the battle against climate change.”
As the challenge’s website mentions, social media donation campaigns like this one first became popular in 2014, when celebrities ranging from Mark Zuckerberg to Martha Stewart dumped buckets of ice water over their heads to raise awareness and money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The effort, in addition to flooding everyone’s social media feeds and contributing to the killing of a firefighter, raised $115 million in just six weeks for the cause. Sanders’s campaign, which held an event with Atlanta-based rapper Killer Mike and claims to have been the first presidential campaign to launch an Apple TV app, has made an art of raising funds by reacting quickly to social media and encouraging grassroots operations such as these.
Subsequent videos featured Sanders supporters eating wasabi and jalapeños dipped in hot sauce. Oren Peli, who directed the horror movie “Paranormal Activity,” filmed himself eating a “spicy chicken sandwich” covered in sriracha. Several people drank hot sauce. Others opted for physical activity including pushups or punching wood. A circus performer filmed a clip of himself doing “foot drills until I cry.”
On Wednesday, the campaign website began featuring links to the #BernChallenge on its donations page. At least one member of the campaign has done their part. Scott Goodstein, a digital consultant, filmed his own video, in which he ate jalapeños drenched in hot sauce. The aftermath, it’s safe to say, won’t be filmed.
