Vote: These Instagram challenges are all bad, but which is definitively the worst?

You’ve just had the Insta notification that someone’s tagged you in a story. Oh no. Are you going to have to go on a run a mile or are you going to have to dig up an old picture of you and your boyfriend? As if times weren’t bleak enough now you have to deal with social media reverting to its worst era of chain challenges, and if you push back you’re officially a massive fun-sponge who wants the NHS to burn to the ground. Wtf are you meant to do? You don’t even have a boyfriend.

Here’s the tea, lads: These challenges are all cringy and stupid. It’s the sort of thing we as a generation grew out of in 2010 and the very fact some of the exact same trends we took part in when we were kids are resurfacing a decade later means we are actually regressing as a species. And I get it, everyone’s bored, no one’s seen each other in weeks, and the whole concept of Instagram is becoming more and more redundant with each passing day. But do we really need to bring neck and nominate back? Have you tried maybe calling your friends?

Leaving aside the fact these challenges are all awful, the one thing I want to know is: Which of them is genuinely the worst? Below you’ll find the biggest offenders, so pick your poison:

The 5k challenge

Look there are several reasons to be concerned about the way this challenge treats public healthcare like a charity but this is neither the time nor the place to get into it. What’s more aggravating is the way all of my mates are apparently just ~able~ to run five kilometres like it’s not a big deal? When did you all leave me behind?

The first pic with your boyfriend

As if couples on Instagram weren’t insufferable enough, now they’re rubbing it in your face that they’ve been together long enough for them to have visibly aged since they got together. Meanwhile you’re sat there in your lonely sexless lockdown after your fifth wank of the day. Thanks a lot guys.

Neck and Nominate 2.0

Remember neck and nominate 1.0? Remember how people would mix eggs, tabasco, and Guinness into a pint glass and then down it for clout? These days it seems like there’s an unspoken rule that neck-and-nom pints have to be purely alcohol, so as to avoid things escalating like they did last time.

The 30 day song challenge

Scroll right to the bottom and vote for this now. You know in your very soul it’s the worst of these by a mile for the sole reason NO ONE CARES. I cannot stress enough that no one on this earth gives a single fragment of shit about your favourite song – much less your favourite 30. You realise we all have your Instagram story muted, right? You really think people are unmuting it to see you listen to Oasis album tracks in your spare time? Come on now. This challenge was embarrassing in 2009 and it’s embarrassing now. I beg you please bail on it, it doesn’t matter that you’re 14 days in. No can even read it anyway.

Four albums you can’t skip

For much the same reason as above, we all need to get it through our heads that no one cares about our music tastes other than ourselves. Please stop trying to make Twitter think you have refined taste because you listen to Frank Ocean.

Tag as many beautiful women as you can

Premise is simple: Upload a nice pic of yourself in a dress, explain that all women are queens, and tag 30 of your mates. Boom. You’ve felled the patriarchy. Well done you.

Until tomorrow…

This one’s dead in the water now, but was actually pretty great because for a day Instagram was full of pictures of people having fun rather than reaching for aesthetic perfection.

Five footballers that made you fall in love with the game

It is quite cute watching boys talk about football because it’s really the only time you get to see the life in their eyes. And what Harry writes about his favourite five footballers growing up will be more heartfelt and emotional than what he will one day say to his wife at the altar. We don’t need to dwell on that, but we are in peak “please read a book” territory, folks.

The distracted boyfriend meme, but make it about ME

Have you ever seen people memeing up a Netflix show or a cultural event and wondered how you too could be important? Well now you can. Simply ask people on your Insta story to make the distracted boyfriend meme about you and there you have it. This one comes with the added benefit of showing off how many of your friends have a good read of your character (and by extension how many friends you have).

Ask three friends what your type is

Ask your mates what your type is and post their responses. Shocker, your type is tall, good-looking, and emotionally unavailable. How very unique. With a bit of luck your ex will see it and slide into your DMs with some flirty bantoir then before you know it you’ll be exchanging nudes.

Me at 20

Fresh off the presses, and dead on arrival. Lauren you are 21 mate. This is literally a month-old profile picture.

Now, vote for the worst of them all:

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