Explaining "No Simp September" And How It Hopes To Join Fall's Annual Events

Internet challenges are a common viral concept nowadays where a creator or group will describe a set of rules and watch users across social media sites participate. These types of social games date back to concepts like Movember that later went on to spawn challenges such as "No Shave November" (where mustaches were grown to bring awareness to prostate cancer and male depression).

Although many of these have come and gone over the years, there remains a yearly meme challenge that originally stems from examples like No Shave November. No Nut November is a semi-serious challenge for online users to avoid pornography and masturbation, but it's certainly not alone.

November isn't the only themed month, and right before it comes Spooktober where October is entirely given over to Halloween and memes that feature skeletons reign supreme. Yet over the years, these months have started to become stagnant, so No Simp September, in the same vein of No Shave and No Nut November, hopes to buck this stagnation and achieve mainstream success.

The term simp needs to be properly defined and picked apart to understand the heart of No Simp September. Similar to white knight, it’s a derogatory term for men who commit themselves to women hoping to earn their favor. Although the slang term can be traced to an early 2000s Three 6 Mafia song, the exact origin is unknown. It’s spread in late 2018, and slow acceptance in 2019, meant it would become a prominent slang term by 2020. The term has since spawned memes such as Simp Nation and Mordecai Was a Simp, demonstrating its popularity. Ultimately, the term is used both as an insult and a way to call out certain behavior, and the latter usage is what inspired the monthly challenge that's been trending as of late.

@lauryns.lifestyle

Guilty hehe ##simp ##simping ##nosimpseptember ##simpnation

♬ GFDI DAVE. – totallynormalsounds

Similar to previous attempts at monthly viral events, No Simp September will look to push and theme content in its namesake month. Like its predecessors, No Simp September is a type of monthly challenge that is split between seriousness and humor. Its creation seems to be made in jest when TikTok user @albaniantweetreated posted the first viral video with a threat of simps being handed over to The Boys.

However, an unofficial set of rules was posted by Redditor Bruhbot42069 on the /r/NoSimpSeptember subreddit, a community formed in August 2020, suggesting a type of "self-help" could be gleaned from the challenge. The rules suggest that participants should: save money from Twitch donations, spend time with family or friends rather than stay fixated to a computer screen, not share or approve of content that is low-effort but features women, and to manage their pornography usage to lower the risk of addiction. The success of the challenge remains to be seen, however, it has a chance to persist even if the memes fail to stick.

Although other monthly events began to repeat content and repost previous memes, they have stayed somewhat relevant for years, and there is no indication that 2020 will alter the annual memes. Of course, reposted content can create apathy in users who have stuck around long-term, but reposts are some of the most common types of content shared online surrounding these events. Regardless if it’s across sites or time, the same jokes remain whether it’s Spooky Scary Skeletons in October or the superpowers gained by refraining from masturbation in November.

This being said, new trends will play off these reposts, like the Coomer pledge, and will bring fresh ideas to the annual events. No Simp September, while young, may be the final piece in the annual lineup of fall events, but it must have viral content across the internet to earn its true place.

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