What the Word "Challenge" Means in English vs. in Japanese – NHK E-Tele "SNS Eigojutsu" #○○Challenge (aired 2019/08/09)

1.The Theme for Our 8/9 Episode: #○○Challenge

On this episode of Sekai e Hasshin! SNS Eigojutsu on NHK E-Tele, our topic was internet challenges. We featured some of the recent social media stunts that people across the internet have taken part in.

The first internet challenge we looked at was the #BottleCapChallenge, which took the online world by storm in July. Users far and wide posted videos of themselves roundhouse kicking the loosened bottle cap off bottles.

The catalyst for these types of challenges to go mainstream are often celebrities, and this one was no different. #BottleCapChallenge is thought to have originated among mixed martial arts circles before celebs like singer-songwriter John Mayer and action star Jason Statham got in on the fun.

We also featured the #BowWowChallenge, where social media users post pictures that show themselves in glamorous situations that are clearly staged or photoshopped. The hashtag began in 2017 after rapper Bow Wow posted a picture of a private jet to Instagram with a caption that said he was about to embark on a press tour for his new TV show. Another user subsequently photographed Bow Wow aboard a commercial airline flight and exposed the lie. Later, it came to light that the picture Bow Wow had posted was likely a photoshopped version of a photo posted to a VIP transportation company in Florida.

Users started posting their own staged photos, side by side with a picture showing the sad reality of the situation.

Internet challenges are not just about messing around—we also featured the #TrashTagChallenge, where people cleaned up areas littered with trash and posted before and after shots as proof.

Yesterday was a beautiful day to be out at an Algiers beach with our USG exchange program alumni to commemorate Earth Day 2019. #trashtagchallenge https://t.co/S4vT2VqhtE pic.twitter.com/weSoTei2Pu
— Ambassador Aubin (@USAmbtoAlgeria) April 28, 2019

In this way, internet challenges are often intended to increase awareness of social problems or environmental issues. Perhaps the most famous example of this was the #IceBucketChallenge in 2014. The purpose of the challenge was to raise awareness of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and encourage donations to research; those who were challenged had to either post a video of themselves getting a bucket of ice water poured over their heads, or donate 100 dollars, then nominate three more people to take the challenge.

2.Challenges Before Social Media

Challenges spread quickly by word of mouth in the social media age, but they are not an internet invention. Challenges existed in various shapes in forms before social media made them a dime a dozen.

When I was growing up, the most popular challenge around was none other than the Pepsi Challenge. The Pepsi Challenge took the form of a blind taste test for general consumers: two cups, one containing Pepsi, and the other containing Coca-Cola. The test showed that tasters generally favored Pepsi—even self-proclaimed Coca-Cola lovers. Of course, the entire thing was a promotional campaign orchestrated by Pepsi maker PepsiCo, which was lagging behind Coke both in terms of brand recognition and cans sold.

In the context of the internet challenges of our day, it may not be immediately clear what about the Pepsi Challenge is a “challenge". The challenge lies in PepsiCo’s unwavering confidence that presented a choice unaffected by preconceptions consumers would choose Pepsi over any other cola. It’s essentially their way of saying, we dare you to choose another cola over Pepsi. The word challenge in this sense is synonymous with stunt, as in publicity stunt—or in Japanese, senden koui (宣伝行為) or baimei koui (売名行為).

Another kind of challenge is the juvenile pranks and stunts performed without a hint of shame by the cast of the hit American cable TV show Jackass. “The Milk Challenge", for example, involved chugging one gallon of milk as quickly as possible, while the “50-Egg Challenge" involved eating 50 boiled eggs in one sitting.

Buy on Amazon

The wacky games played on Japanese TV variety shows and game shows can also be more accurately characterized as stunts and challenges. In comedy duo Downtown’s annual year-end Waratte wa Ikenai series, participants are put in various situations with only one rule: do not laugh under any circumstances. Violators are punished on the spot. In other words, it is a “no laughing challenge".

Buy on Amazon

3.“Charenji" vs “Challenge"

In Japanese, the katakana loanword charenji (チャレンジ) is used casually, as in the following sentences:「英語にチャレンジする」 (try to learn English) and「料理にチャレンジする」(attempt to cook).

In English, however, the noun challenge refers to difficult tasks (kadai, 課題) and obstacles (nankan, 難関), as in “He faced many challenges growing up." Health challenges are medical difficulties that stand in your way of being fully healthy, and life’s challenges are the roundhouse kicks that life delivers to you, often when you least expect it. The challenges of the 21st century are the problems that we face that, if left unaddressed, may doom the future of human civilization.

The verb to challenge means to confront or to call out to duel or combat, as in “I challenge you to a duel" (in Japanese, 「お前に決闘を申し込む」or “I challenge you to a push-up contest" (「腕立て伏せでお前に勝負を挑む」). Many internet challenges have a similar air of defiance, a snide invitation to competition.

The word challenge originally comes from a Latin word meaning to falsely accuse or to take exception to. That meaning remains in expressions such as challenge someone’s opinion (「異議を唱える」「異議を申し立てる」) and challenge someone’s authority (権力者の正当性を疑う). Also, a challenge in tennis is to question a chair umpire or linespersons’ call.

As these examples show, challenge is considerably more serious than charenji. Difficult tasks and obstacles are a test of one’s mettle, and to give up halfway would be tantamount to losing one’s honor. A duel is a matter of life and death. And to question someone’s legitimacy—or the legitimacy of their claims—is a serious action that should not be taken lightly. Recently young Japanese pranksters have been posting videos to social media where they attempt to provoke and annoy police officers to their faces. While the youngsters appear to approach the prank as nothing more than another “challenge", they should realize that if they tried to pull the same kind of stunt in the U.S., they would face considerably more serious consequences.

For more examples of how the word challenge is used in English, check out LANGUAGE & EDUCATION #012.

4.Challenges are not a Game

There is a popular philosophical thought experiment: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? A falling tree disturbs the air and produces airwaves that can be measured; however, if a human ear is not there to “receive" the airwaves, it can be argued that the tree technically does not produce a sound. In any case, may I suggest a corollary for the social media age: if someone posts a video of a tree falling in the forest to Instagram, but it receives no likes, did it make sound?

Social media amplifies our desire for recognition by encouraging us to measure our self-worth by the number of likes we receive. That, in turn, eggs us on to capture increasingly breathtaking, harrowing, and extreme moments to continually feed the self esteem machine. In that sense, social media has become a never-ending game of one-upsmanship. Our resident commentator Furuta Daisuke-san offered a few words of caution and brought up some pranks that had gone too far.

In April 2019, for example, a Japanese YouTuber live streamed her attempt to consume a rice ball in one bite but ended up choking and falling unconscious. She was later pronounced dead.

Dangerous internet challenges have also become a scourge of the internet. Perhaps most infamous was the #TidePodChallenge, which became a thing among American teenagers at the beginning of 2018. Laundry detergent pods had already garnered attention for the fact that people feared that children could mistake them for sweets, but the #TidePodChallenge was a dare to intentionally consume or pop pods in your mouth. As a result, there was a clear spike in the number of teenagers being taken to the hospital for poisoning. In response, Google and Facebook removed any videos of the challenge, and banned the practice from their sites.

Then the beginning of 2019 saw the rise of the #BirdBoxChallenge, where users attempted to walk around or conduct daily tasks with a blindfold on. The challenge was inspired by the Netflix original horror film Bird Box, where the characters must wear blindfolds or risk being driven insane and to suicide. Videos showed netizens injuring themselves by walking into walls, but that wasn’t the worst of it—some attempted to drive while blindfolded. As a result, Netflix issued a plea to its users via Twitter:

Can’t believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE. We don’t know how this started, and we appreciate the love, but Boy and Girl have just one wish for 2019 and it is that you not end up in the hospital due to memes.
— Netflix (@netflix) January 2, 2019

Examples such as the #TidePodChallenge and #BirdBoxChallenge are extreme examples, but they demonstrate a failure to understand danger that is not just disconcerting, but dumbfounding. Perhaps participants see it as nothing more than a game. Maybe the teenagers who were taken to the hospital believed that even if they had died, the cosmic reset button would have respawned them back into their mundane lives the following morning, as if nothing ever happened. While the lighthearted #BottleCapChallenge may be one of the purest delights of the internet, it’s important to recognize that challenges are not a game—they are a matter of life and death.