Thu, 28 Mar, 2024

Craziness At Its Peak: #DWITFirstProfilePictureChallenge

By Abhusan Gautam

Photo Courtesy: Abhusan Gautam

DWITians are innovative. Every month, someone comes up with a revolutionary idea that becomes viral and stays as a ‘trend’. In the beginning, the most viral and also the most annoying trend, if performed for evil deeds, was to access someone else’s social media and upload some controversial status and pictures. Almost everyone was doing it and almost everyone careless enough to leave their laptop or cell phones open were victimized. Literally, no one was safe. My social media was also jeopardized a couple of times and I had to argue with my friends online that I wasn’t gay and I didn’t upload that status.

Next up was Dubsmash. Rishav Bhurtel from Batch 2017 pioneered Dubsmash in DWIT and he created a lot of Dubsmash hits. It was something fun to do and it did not matter how bad you looked because you’d always look pretty stupid. From solo dialogues to class dances, Dubsmash took DWIT by storm. Sadly, I couldn’t create a masterpiece when it was in the hype. Another interesting thing a lot of people were doing was invading Chief Academic Officer Hitesh Karki’s Office and taking pictures of him or herself while sitting in his chair when he wasn’t around. It was crazy fun to see friends’ selfies imitating the Chief Academic Officer. I unfortunately did not get to do that either.

At present, a new fashion has swept the students of DWIT off their feet: the #DWITFirstProfilePictureChallenge (yes, with a hashtag). According to the rules, you have to re-upload your first photo on Facebook as your profile picture and let it stay there for at least a day. It was started by a couple of bored students of Batch 2017 Section B to reminisce the past days. At least that was the plan when it began, but soon it became an excuse to look at friends’ past pictures and literally laugh our hearts out. We were stupid when we were kids and had pictures we were super proud of back then that are embarrassing at the present. People that had undergone an extreme change in their body physique (including me and Muskan Lamsal, both from fourth semester) were praised/mocked* for changing (*depended on who was watching the picture). At first it was limited to only 2017 batch, but soon students of other batches also picked it up. The news feed was filled with silly photos. Students were tagging their friends to take the challenge; everyone was involved. Only a handful of students (mostly girls) hesitated to change their picture. But this didn’t stop us from stalking their profile and laughing at them anyways. So, no one was safe. The trend is still on by the way, which means the fun has not subsided! “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” (Thomas A. Edison). All DWITians are blessed with super-human imagination to invent and innovate new trends, or are at least equipped with a lot of junk. So, it’s a safe bet to say there will be crazier stuff going on at DWIT for years to come.