About

The Please Don't Go Challenge is a TikTok transformational video trend. The videos consist of two shots. In the first shot, the participants lip-sync to the song "Please Don't Go" by Mike Posner while sitting in the car. As they reach the lyrics reach the titular lines, the video cuts to another shot of the participants wearing headscarves and sunglasses, indicating that they left the relationship.

Origin

On June 9th, 2010, American recording artist Mike Posner released the song "Please Don't Go."^[1] Later that year, on October 15th, Posner published a video for the song on YouTube, which received more than 51 million views in less than 11 years (shown below).

In 2020, the song became associated with a TikTok trend that acted out the lyrics to the song from the perspective of the person being sung to. In the song, Posner pleads with an unnamed person to not leave him, presumably, meaning that he wants to remain in a romantic partnership. The videos, however, play on wardrobe signifiers associated with someone running away. The most recognizable comparison would be the characters in the 1991 film Thelma & Louise,^[2] which follows two fugitive women after they escape their romantic relationships. One of the characters, Louise (portrayed by Susan Sarandon), wears a headscarf and sunglasses (shown below). Once the participant reaches the lyrics "please don't go," the video cuts to a shot of the participants dressed like Louise.

On March 9th, 2021, TikToker @k4y133nt posted the earliest available version of the trend, which received more than 736,000 views, 148,000 reactions and 1,400 comments in less than one month (shown below).

Spread

The trend continued to grow over the next few weeks, thanks to several posts that received well over a million views. On March 10th, TikTok @cassidycondiee posted a variation that received more than 3.3 million views, 619,000 reactions and 9,000 comments in less than two weeks (shown below, left).

On March 14th, TikToker @chaotticgoood posted a variation with a pet frog. The post received more than 16 million views, 4.4 million reactions and 76,000 comments in less than one week (shown below, right).

On March 16th, the website StayHipp^[3] published an article about the trend. As of March 19th, 2021, more than 87,000 videos were made using the song.^[4]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References