Reflection #3

Like many of the challenges that has come and gone. One that has caught my attention is the “22 Pushup Challenge”. This was created to bring awareness for the United States Veterans. Much like the ALS challenge, a person or a group of people can post a video on their social media of choice. In this video, they are doing 22-pushups that symbolizes the number of veterans that day their own lives. This hasn’t been as popular as the ALS. But it is bringing the same type of awareness that uses all the social media sites. Many celebrates have come forward to take part of this cause.

It was created by a non-profit called 22Kill that started this trend to support veterans who were returning home and their families. Not only is this to support the number of suicides but also to help the health issues that are affiliated with coming home from a war zone.  Like the ALS you are able to challenge people to do this challenge and tag more people.  A lot of the celebrates that did the challenge also gave a phone number to a hotline that people could also use to get help.

According to a report done by CNN on this cause, “the ultimate goal of the project is to reach 22 million pushups, and the group uses people’s tags to keep a live tally. “Also stating in that same article that “Public support and appreciation can help veterans tackle the overwhelming challenges they sometimes face after they leave the uniform behind.” This is something important because these people spend time away from their families and we don’t really know what they went thru. By these people bringing awareness and really showing support it will be easier from veterans to transition to civilian life.

By them using social media it is a way to bring awareness more quickly than any other platform. With this they are able to track what people are doing and really show the outreach. In the Users of the world, unite article,  " The main objective of content communities is the sharing of media content between users." This why these type of viral video's work because the fact that people are able to share them doing the challenge. 

Vitto, Laura. “What Is the 22 Push-up Challenge?” August 15, 2016. Accessed March 6, 2017. http://mashable.com/2016/08/17/22-push-up-challenge/#owJ4hTFBTaqQ.

Willingham, AJ. “The Disturbing Statistic Behind the ‘22 Pushup challenge.’” CNN (CNN), August 19, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/19/health/what-is-22-pushup-challenge-trnd/.

Kaplan, Andreas M., “Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media,” Business Horizons (2010) 53, 59-68

ABC News. “22 Pushups Challenge | the Rock, Chris Pratt & Chris Evans Push-up Videos.” YouTube. August 16, 2016. Posted March 6, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieXZzY5yy0M.