Alita Challenge

About

Alita Challenge refers to an internet campaign which promoted watching 2019 action film Alita: Battle Angel instead of 2019 MCU film Captain Marvel on the International Women's Day 2019, and various memes in which the main characters of both movies are compared in favor of the former.

Origin

On January 8th, 2019, non-profit organization We Have Stories launched a GoFundMe campaign "Send Girl to See Captain Marvel"^[1] with a goal to raise $20,000 to provide young girls with free tickets to Captain Marvel screenings on March 8th, 2019. On the same day, We Have Stories founder Fred Joseph posted^[2] about the campaign on Twitter, using a hashtag #CaptainMarvelChallenge, with the tweet gaining over 3,600 retweets and 14,800 likes in two months. As of February 27th, 2019, the campaign raised over $60,000.

On February 7th, 2019, in an interview to Marie Clair,^[3] Captain Marvel leading actress Brie Larsen made remarks about press audience attending her press days was "overwhelmingly white male" and added that she intended to make her press days "more inclusive" in the future. The interview was met with a backlash from certain online audiences, with an influx of negative user reviews being posted on Rotten Tomatoes ahead of the movie release and memes criticizing the actress and the upcoming movie appearing online.^[4]

On February 23rd, 2019, Twitter^[5] user @GenXStrikesBack tweeted about the Captain Marvel challenge, urging their followers to make Alita: Battle Angel the top box-office film on March 8th, 2019, and using the hashtag #AlitaChallenge. The tweet gained 8 retweets and 25 likes. On February 27th, @GenXStrikesBack made a YouTube^[6] video criticizing the Captain Marvel challenge and promoting the alternative.

The hashtag did not receive significant spread until on March 4th, 2019, alt-right journalist John Posobiec tweeted^[7] about the challenge, speaking against the trend for larger inclusion in Marvel movies. The tweet gained over 700 retweets and 1,800 likes in one week, with the attached announcement video gaining over 200,000 views.

This Friday, March 8th, go see Alita, go see a real movie with a great female lead that talks about real issues, not this pandering SJW crap.

Spread

On March 4th, 2019, Twitter^[8] user @Palle_Hoffstein tweeted a screenshot of an earlier, now-deleted tweet^[9] by Jack Posobiec in which he called Alita: Battle Angel "a boring mess".

The hashtag was picked up and spread by several notable Twitter personalities, including popular tweets by Mindy Robinson^[10] (over 400 retweets) and Ashley StClair (over 3,600 retweets).^[11]

The trend received support in /r/alitabattleangel subreddit, with numerous posts made by people taking part in the challenge (examples shown below).^[12][13]

On March 10th, 2019, Rotten Tomatoes released box office results for the weekend,^[14] reporting that Captain Marvel was the largest-grossing film with $153 million earned in three days and Alita: Battle Angel earning $3,2 million in the same period.

The challenge was covered by several blogs and news outlets, including Nerd Reactor,^[15] ZerroHedge,^[16] Culttture^[17] and DTF.^[18]

Chinese Alita Challenge

Independent of the #AlitaChallenge, mentions of another challenge of the same name taking place in China appeared online. On March 10th, 2019, Redditor^[19] Raido5 posted a photograph of a person holding an unpeeled orange with a bite in it to /r/alitabattleangel subreddit, claiming that Alita: Battle Angel fans in China have been eating oranges the same way as Alita does in the film.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References