About

Tetris Challenge refers to a trend that spread among law enforcement and firefighting agencies around the globe in which police officers and firefighters are photographed from above as they lay on the ground with the equipment that goes into their vehicle arranged in a grid pattern.

Origin

On September 1st, 2019, the Facebook page for the Swiss canton of Zurich posted a picture of two officers laying on the ground next to their equipment and car in a grid pattern.^[1] The caption of the photo translated into English reads, "If you have always wanted to know what is all in a patrol car of the traffic – here you go. We wish you a #happy Sunday." The picture gained over 4,500 reactions and 1,000 shares (shown below).

Precursor

On November 19th, 2018, the Twitter account for the New Zealand police department posted a similar-style photo, using the hashtag "#Flatlay"^[3] (shown below).

Spread

Over the following weeks, the post inspired other public service agencies to take similar photos under the hashtag #TetrisChallenge. On September 12th, the ville_de_genever Instagram page posted an example, gaining over 2,200 likes (shown below, left). A Taiwanese police department posted an example on September 16th that gained over 2,500 likes (shown below, right). On September 18th, the trend was covered by The Guardian.^[2]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References