For some time now, a trend called the #silhouettechallenge on social platform Tik Tok has been going viral and spreading to Twitter and Instagram too.

The challenge requires participants (mostly women) to pose in front of the camera fully clothed, then stand in the doorway, dancing provocatively and showing off their bodies, with the help of a red filter that makes them appear as a silhouette.

The trend includes a remix of Paul Anka’s Put Your Head on My Shoulder.

While the challenge was meant to encourage body positivity, the videos are now being hijacked by individuals skilled at video editing.

A t the same time, non-participants have been critical of the challenge.

One individual with whom Our Today spoke, who preferred not to identified, said he worries for the consciousness of the young women in today’s society as he believes they are a little more gullible than in the past.

What many of those women seem to have failed to realise is that whatever is uploaded to the Internet stays forever, even after being deleted by the user.

Also, why do women or men need to ‘show off their bodies’ in order to feel sexy or to understand the concept of ‘body positivity?’

Literally any creative software could have been used to remove the red filter from the videos, but to reveal the bodies of participants clothed or not, is a threat to the participants and users of social media.

YouTube in particular has become a platform for these hackers to instruct individuals on how to edit the videos, with viewers surpassing 60,000.

Also, if the tutorial videos show explicit content, they could violate the platforms’ guidelines against sexual content, particularly content that entails “non-consensual sex acts or unwanted sexualisation,” especially if these tutorials feature ads, which would indicate that they are monetised per view.

The challenge has gained so much negative attention that influencers on Tik Tok took to the platform to warn women about the challenge, if they should choose to become a participant.

 “Be cognizant of what you’re wearing before editing the final product because anyone can take those images and easily revert them back to the original.”

The concept of ‘body positivity’ starts with the mind. Self-love, means understanding self-worth.

Therefore, if you ever find yourself in the position of wanting to do a silhouette challenge, ask yourself ‘why?’ “Am I doing this as an artistic expression or am I doing this because I really am self-conscious of my body?”