About

#LeiaChallenge is a hashtag photo fad in which people attempt to recreate an image of Prince Leia Organa from the epic space opera Star Wars. In the photographs, people pose with a shroud over their nose and mouth to resemble the image of Leia.

Origin

The earliest known iteratin of the #LeiaChallenge was posted on January 16th, 2017 by Twitter ^[1] user @molly_the_tanz. She tweeted a picture of Leia next to a picture of herself making the same pose by covering her nose and mouth with a scarf and the caption "Why should Kylo Ren have all the fun with the #KyloRenchallenge? Let's start the #LeiaChallenge." The tweet (shown below) received more than 320 retweets and 1,600 likes in 24 hours.

Spread

Shortly after the first post was made, people began replying to tweet with variations on the challenge. In most cases, participants would shroud the bottom of their face with a piece of fabric, but other times, people would use other coverings, such as a baby (shown below, left).

That evening the media outlet Uproxx^[2] covered the popularity of the #LeiaChallenge. Additionally, Twitter^[3] published a Moments page to archive and showcase some of the most popular entries.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References