Will This Go Viral?

When you think of The Mannequin Challenge, chances are the following comes to mind: Blac Chyna giving birth to Dream Kardashian, Ellen DeGeneres and her crew backstage, and just millennials goofing off. But Bangalore advertising agency, AutumnWorldwide, is using the viral trend to fight sexual assault, and utilizing the hashtag: #DontBeAMannequin.

The powerful video shows two men assaulting a woman as she is surrounded by people, frozen, looking on, and not taking any action. The video comes just weeks after mass molestations occurred in Bangalore during New Years.

What do you do when you’re a famous actress in search of childhood photos of you and your bestie? Ask Twitter, of course!

Over the weekend, Game of Thrones actress Maisie Williams was on the hunt for young pictures of herself and GOT co-star/BFF Sophie Turner:

Not only did Twitter deliver:

But things got a little silly:

Based on Williams’s response, we think she got more than she bargained for:

Betty White is an actress known for her quick whit, charm, and vulgarity. She’s transcended generations, with roles in TV shows spanning from the 50 through today. Her most memorable roles include The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Match Game, The Betty White Show, and The Golden Girls. She’s also been in a slew of films.

She’s also been the subject of viral internet trends including the petition to get her to host SNL, and, most recently, the “Help Protect Betty White from 2016″ GoFundMe. 

As the last living member of the Golden Girls, White has also been the subject of many an internet hoax that she had passed away. Well, today, we continue to put those hoaxes to shame and celebrate her 95th birthday!

Thank YOU for being a friend, Ms. White!

Press play and take a gander at some of Betty’s infamous quotes!

...and it’s a coloring book.

Jason Wong, who according to his Twitter bio makes “memes to cope with my crippling depression,” is an online personality with a loyal online following and the brilliant mind behind The Meme Bible. The book features this year’s popular memes in coloring book format (a.k.a outlined in black and white) combining two hopping trends: sharing memes and adult coloring books. According to the site, it features 2016′s most iconic memes, including Damn Daniel, Crying Jordan, and, of course, Harambe. You can interact with these memes across 16 double-sided pages in forms of coloring pages, connect the dots, word search, crossword puzzle, and maze. Whether you’re shaking your head in disbelief or pulling out your credit card to pay $7.99 for this book, you have to admit the brilliancy of creating this product; we know meme fanatics are rejoicing - and there are a lot of them.

At the InStyle and Warner Bros. official Golden Globes after-party, InStyle showed fans what happens to celebrities behind closed elevator doors in a cute celeb-studded Instagram campaign. 

Celebrities got silly in the elevator-themed VIP photo booth - waltzing with the elevator operator, showing off their ornate dresses, taking power naps, celebrating their wins, and - ahem - making out a bit. These videos garnered tons of views, from 140K-2.5M each, and even received some cross-promotion on the stars’ pages.

Last week, techies, marketers, business leaders, and brands gathered at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to view and discuss the latest consumer technology.  As media professionals, the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, is one of the highlights of our year; it gives us a glimpse of what brands are doing to better themselves, how they’re marketing it, and what new technology may be available to us, either now or in the near future. Taking a look at which brands joined the CES conversation and what was presented, we found the top five trends from this year’s trade show.

Tech Belongs in Travel With business travelers and millennials demanding a more tech-savvy travel experience, those in the industry are looking to answer their needs in the splashiest way possible. Hotels on the Las Vegas strip, appropriately where CES was hosted, are constantly working to bring a cohesive interactive experience to their guests. From mobile check-in and in-room tablets at the Aria to LED hi-def displays at The Cosmopolitan, the hotels are incorporating technology in every aspect of their offerings.

Taking note from the Disney Park MagicBand experience, and direction from Carnival chief experience and innovation officer John Padgett, who led development of the MagicBands, Carnival Corp. cruises will be incorporating wearable technology on its ships. At CES, the brand unveiled a coin-sized chip, named the Ocean Medallion, for guests to wear to get into their rooms, navigate the ship, order food, find friends and family onboard, and more. It even allows crew to customize guest experiences from the information embedded in the chip. Brands at CES proved that tech in travel is all about making consumers’ experiences hassle-free, more seamless, and customizable.

Robots in Your Home If CES proved one thing, it’s that our lives are becoming more and more like The Jetsons every day.  Multiple brands showed up to the showroom with miniature robots that fit right in your home, teaching your children to read, playing music, greeting guests, and acting as personal assistants. One of our favorite robots from CES was Mayfield Robotics’ Kuri. The 20-inch adorable Kuri, a “little loyal home robot with a cheerful personality,” can follow you around, capture videos and photos, tell bedtime stories to your children, and welcome guests. It also learns and understands your household; it knows which room belongs to whom and can wake you in time for work and even greet you when you return. Kuri’s creators also worked with Pixar in creating a comprehensive (and endearing) robotic language.

Upgrade Your Wheels There is currently stiff competition to perfect autonomous driving for the general consumer that multiple brands are participating in, but in the meantime, there are other impressive technologies that may soon be available in your car. At CES, BMW displayed the BMW i Inside Future concept to display its new technology: HoloActive Touch. The HoloActive Touch ditches the traditional dashboard and instead features a massive floating display that stretches across. If you want to interact with it, just wave your arm. Buttons are so 2016. Toyota was also present with the Concept-i, featuring a super-impressive AI system, named Yui. Not only will Yui be able to operate every function of the car by asking (which includes a seat massage), ‘he’ can also measure your emotions in order to build a relationship with you. Yui can tell if you’re stressed from rush hour traffic or enjoying your drive through the mountains by reading facial expressions. Tying into the autonomous driving tech, Yui notices if you’re not focused on the road or if your driving isn’t up to the current climatic conditions and may take over. Yui also provides fun trivia for your road trips, which is definitely a highlight for us.

Image Source: TopGear

Everything is Getting Smarter We just reviewed how our homes and cars are getting smarter with intense AI technology and robotic assistants that follow us around, but CES 2017  also showed that our less-expensive everyday items are, too. L'Oreal, Kerastase, and Withings teamed up to create the first Bluetooth-connected smart hairbrush Kerastase Hair Coach Powered by Withings. The brush, connected to an app on your smartphone, evaluates the health of your hair and measures the impact of different hair care routines. It features a microphone, 3-axis load cells, an accelerometer, gyroscope, and conductivity sensors. If hair care isn’t your thing and your morning routine is centered on coffee and food, Griffin Technology has you covered. With the Connected Coffee Maker and Connected Toaster, your daily cup of coffee and morning toast can also be Bluetooth-enabled and have a companion smartphone app that saves your preferences for every time.

Image Source: Griffin Technology

The Anti-Tech In a bold twist, and a way to garner attention, a few brands decided to stand up against technology at CES 2017.   Actor Nick Offerman promised to unveil a “device like no other” that “offers more meaningful ways to connect than ever thought possible.” The device? A good, old-fashioned paper greeting card by American Greetings that you can send via snail mail! Along with this joke-reveal, American Greetings gave attendees the chance to customize limited edition greeting cards with American Greetings illustrators and writers. In a statement, American Greetings executive director of marketing Alex Ho said, “…consumers are now seeking ways to connect more meaningfully and differently with the people that matter most, which is why our category remains stable alongside the rise of smartphones, messaging apps and social media. American Greetings is at CES to celebrate that coexistence with digital technology.” Tinder, which unlike American Greetings is actually a digital technology, also pranked consumers. The company made it seem that is was joining the virtual reality trend, as many tech companies are, and launching a new VR experience. Tinder had a booth and video featuring the product. When consumers peeked inside the multi-person headset though, instead of being brought to a different world or experience, they were looking directly into each other’s eyes. Tinder wanted to remind people the goal of the company is to get people to match and meet up in the real world, and nothing can replace those interactions.

Image Source: Gizmodo

Senator Bernie Sanders became the voice of many millennials by demonstrating his liberal views and social equality work. For the umpteenth time, Sanders proved his connection to the millennial generation this week by turning to social media in order to prove a point. 

Sanders printed out a Trump tweet and brought it to the Senate floor.

The Senate is currently discussing Obamacare and debating the repeal of it; most members of the Republican Party are for repealing it. There are many aspects of Obamacare that can be reformed, repealed, or adjusted. But Sanders, in order to help demonstrate his point that Donald Trump promised not to cut Medicare and Medicaid benefits, showed up with a print out of a May 2015 tweet from President-elect Donald Trump stating, “I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. Huckabee copied me.”

By doing this, Sanders also gave the country, and politicians, a lesson: what you put on the Internet can live there forever. It can also be thrown back in your face via a printed out white board in the front of the Senate floor. 

In a bold move last week, fast food restaurant Wendy’s responded to an obnoxious Internet troll on Twitter after posting the below tweet.

Image Source: Twitter

Twitter user @NHride, a.k.a. the troll, responded to the tweet claiming that the beef is indeed frozen and called the chain “a joke.” And then this conversation happened:

Image Source: Buzzfeed

The Wendy’s social media professional did what every person who ever worked in a customer service job wanted to do: tell off the customer. 

In the professional world, this is something we typically would recommend against doing. You should ignore, not encourage, the trolls and respond and react to actual customers. But Wendy’s clearly takes its “fresh, never frozen” promise very seriously.

It’s that time of year to look back and reflect on the past twelve months and all that it entailed. Unfortunately, 2016 has received a lot of flak with the messy U.S. presidential election, Brexit, notable celebrity deaths, and various global crises. Although it’s easy to dwell on the negative, we’ve decided to switch gears and look back at all the positive (and funny) things that were happening all around us – especially on the Internet. So for our yearly roundup, we compiled a list of our favorite viral moments from 2016.

Brothers Convince Sister the Zombie Apocalypse is Here

Anyone that has a brother can totally relate to this. These two brothers (and the mom!) convince their sister, who is drugged after her wisdom teeth surgery, that the zombie apocalypse is here. The prank goes on for a few minutes, and we’re blessed with great lines, like “the cat, you idiot!” and “I can say pants” when they ask her how her high school Spanish is.

Hot Dog Princess

In a world of tulle dresses and pink bows, why fit in as a princess when you can stand out as a hot dog? That’s what this wondrous child had us question when she showed up as a hot dog for princess day in dance class and rejected social norms.

Evil Kermit the Frog

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The Evil Kermit the Frog meme has generated so many versions and recreations (see: mom turns herself into Kermit meme) that displays our constant internal battles of what’s appropriate versus what we actually want to do.

Damn Daniel

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“Damn Daniel” is a catchphrase stemmed from a teenager’s Twitter video montage complimenting/teasing his friend Daniel on his outfit choice (especially those white vans). #DamnDaniel trended on Twitter resulting in Daniel Lara and the narrator Josh Holz being featured on Ellen.

#PhelpsFace

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This is a favorite for us for multiple reasons: 1. Michael Phelps’ game face is hysterical, 2. The memes it inspired are amazing, 3. We just love Michael Phelps <3

Chewbacca Mask Lady

Sometimes the most important person to make laugh is yourself. Chewbacca Mask Lady’s infectious laugh reminded us it’s the simple joys in life that really matter, and that includes toys of your favorite fandom.

Running Man Challenge

A video posted by Jaylen Brantley (@jaybriddle_1) on Apr 13, 2016 at 2:57pm PDT

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The Running Man Challenge, following a few years after the Harlem Shake, is a viral dance trend. The challenge was to do your own version off the running man to the 90s song “MyBoo” by Ghost Town DJ’s. Celebs, your Facebook friends, and even dogs all got in on the trend – featuring themselves everywhere, from the locker room to the club.

Josh Groban Singing Donald Trump Tweets

There were a lot of election-related topics trending on the Internet this past year; how could it not when you have a now president-elect that rivals Kanye on Twitter rants and has no filter? Taking advantage of all the absurd things Donald Trump has tweeted, Jimmy Kimmel Live had Josh Groban sing Trump’s tweets in an angelic way to juxtapose the content.

Adele on Carpool Karaoke

James Corden has been amusing audiences with his joyful Carpool Karaoke segment on the The Late Late Show for a while now. But when he featured Adele, who had recently broken records with “Hello” and her album 25, the Internet went crazy. The clip made the public love Adele even more as she sang along to various tunes; her expression for when Corden hit her notes was also priceless. It became the most watched YouTube video of 2016.

Bill Clinton + Balloons

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With so much name-calling and general negativity surrounding this campaign, Bill Clinton's love for balloons seemed so pure. You can see the childlike wonder in his eyes as the balloons fall all around them. And for that, we can’t stop laughing.

Harambe

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In a recent conversation with @refinery29 , Snapchat revealed its top 10 Lenses of 2016. Although Snapchat introduced Lenses in September 2015, the options were limited (remember when everyone was only throwing up rainbows?), so 2016 is when the Lenses really thrived. We saw people’s love for their Lenses transcend into real life; on Halloween, at every turn someone was mimicking their favorite Lens. 

Open up Snapchat, and in a week you can be a dozen different animals, wear flower crowns, swap faces with your BFF, get your makeup enhanced, voice changed, or just look, well, strange. Lenses allow you to look silly, cute, and strange - whatever fits your mood.

Check out the top 10 list and see if your favorite is on there or if you’re surprised by any of the ones that made the list! 

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Instagram announced in a blog post on Thursday that the community has grown to more than 600 million Instagrammers, doubling its size in only two years. One-hundred million people have joined in the past six months, which is the fastest ever.

YouTube hits rewind in their annual year-in-review video, “celebrating the videos, people, music and moves that made 2016.”

In the video clip, you’ll see nods to pop culture moments like Kanye West’s infamous “Famous” scene, Game of Thrones’ Hodor, Lemonade, and THE LATE LATE SHOW with JAMES CORDEN’s Carpool Karaoke (the one featuring Adele is this year’s top viral video!). There’s even a reference to the Internet’s 100 layers of nail polish challenge in one of the scenes. There are a lot of allusions to “Sorry,” both in the soundtrack and choreography; the song actually came out in late 2015, but was the perfect earworm for 2016.

Instagram will now roll out comment liking on posts, bringing in more Facebook features to the platform. New features also include turning off comments for posts (now we can all be Taylor Swift) and removing followers from private accounts without blocking the user.

Data, creativity, and real-time reactions come together in order to fuel Stolichnaya's Instagram page. Specifically, for its Elit Live Social Lab campaign, the company has been turning to Google trends to understand what’s trending online and how it relates to its Elit premium line brand. Stoli then seamlessly enters the conversation online, responding thoughtfully and quickly to the given trend. When “Friendsgiving” was trending, Stoli posted engraved holiday-themed bottles and even leveraged an influencer partner placement.

Stoli also pays attention to lesser holidays. Back when National Donut Day was trending in June, Stoli cleverly joined in on the conversation by posting an image of espresso-flavored martinis (+ recipe!) placed next to a donut, adding the trending hashtag to the description.

Although there is clearly still room for growth on the Elit by Stoli page, we applaud them for smartly placing themselves in conversations with their target audience.