Broom Challenge

About

Broom Challenge, often associated with the hashtag #BroomChallenge, is a viral challenge participants of which attempt to balance a broom on its bristles so it stands upright on its own. The challenge became viral due to a hoax statement that the gravitational pull would allow performing the trick on a specific day in February 2020, while in fact the challenge can be performed successfully on any day.

Origin

On March 17th, 1999, Snopes^[1] posted an article "Egg Balancing on the Equinox" in which it debunked the false belief that eggs and brooms can only be balanced on their ends on vernal and autumnal equinoxes. In February 2012, claimes that the approach of the equinox allowed brooms to stand upright gained prominence on social media. In March 2020, CNN^[2] aired a news segment about the trend, also debunking it (shown below).

In early February 2020, the false belief regained popularity on social media; for example, on February 7th, Instagram^[3] user saquinhodelixo posted several photographs of brooms standing upright, claiming that NASA said that on that day the rotation of the Earth would make the brooms stand on its own. On February 8th, 2020, Time24^[4] News reported on the trend, with no such claims made by NASA being discovered.

On February 10th, 2020, Twitter^[5] user @mikaiylaaaaa tweeted that on that day brooms could stand upright on their own "because of the gravitational pull," attributing the claim to NASA. In the tweet, a video of @mikaiylaaaaa performing the trick was attached. The tweet received over 51,500 retweets and 217,100 likes in one day (shown below), with the video accumulating over 5.4 million views.

Okay so NASA said today was the only day a broom can stand up on its own because of the gravitational pull…I didn’t believe it at first but OMG! 😭😭😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/M0HCeemyGt

— mk (@mikaiylaaaaa) February 10, 2020

Alright y'all. So NASA said today is the day, the only day that your broom can stand up on its own, and watch this. Oh my God! Yo, no strings, nothing! What?

Spread

On the same day, multiple users on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok posted videos of themselves performing the challenge, with hashtags #broomchallenge and #broomstick challenge gaining popularity on all platforms. For example, a tweet by Twitter^[6] user @AyeVontae received over 23,100 retweets and 67,100 likes in one day, with the video accumulating over 867,000 views. A TikTok^[7] video by @torylanez received over 732,300 likes and 2,900 comments in the same period (shown below, left).

Alternative Broom Challenge

On June 8th, 2019, TikTok user @lilsmoakie launched another challenge titled "Broom Challenge" which involved performing several gymnastics moves using a broom (shown below, left). The challenge gained moderate spread on the platform in the following weeks (examples shown below, left and right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References