The challenge encourages folks to indulge in a little romantic nostalgia by going back through their camera rolls, photo albums or the pictures taken by friends and family and posting the earliest known photograph that shows them with their current love.
Participants are supposed to caption the image with the hashtag #FirstPhotoChallenge and then post the image permanently to their Instagram feed or temporarily to their Instagram stories. Some people are also tagging their partners—if they have Instagram accounts—including the year the photo was taken or nominating other Instagram users to accept the challenge as well.
Even single people are invited to participate by posting images of themselves with their best friends, parents, beloved pets or other loved ones. Some single people have responded in earnest with selfies taken at some of their favorite locations or humorously by posting images of themselves holding onto prized possessions and alcoholic drinks.
Because the photo-sharing platform is most popular amongst users between ages 18 and 44, most of the people participating in the First Photo Challenge are reposting images taken from high school, college or parties during their teen and young adult years. Other pictures seem to be from early public dates, weddings of mutual friends or private moments at home together.
Ariel Winter, the 22-year-old actress who portrays the precocious nerd Alex Dunphy in the ABC comedy Modern Family, participated in the First Photo Challenge. In doing so, she confirmed that she is dating Luke Benward, a 24-year-old actor and singer best known for playing Bo in the 2018 Netflix film Dumplin'.
“Even though we’ve been friends for four years, this is the first photo I could find of just us two aside from a paparazzi photo sooooo this will have to do for this challenge,” Winter wrote in her caption. She shared the image via Instagram stories.
The First Photo Challenge this is just the latest social media challenge to dare users to share fun photos and videos.
A post shared by Luκε BεηÏαrd FᥲᥠAᥴᥴoá¥á¥t ð²ð½ (@lukebenwardmx) on Apr 7, 2020 at 5:02pm PDT
A post shared by Olivia June (@heyoliviajune) on Apr 8, 2020 at 8:31am PDT
A post shared by Cara Belcher (@cara413) on Apr 7, 2020 at 6:54pm PDT
A post shared by Ariel Parker (@maddieandhermoms) on Apr 8, 2020 at 2:56pm PDT
In March, some Instagram users participated in the “Flip the Switch” challenge which had users take videos of themselves suddenly swapping places, clothes, or actions with another person. In July of last year, people participated in the FaceApp challenge using an app to dramatically age pictures of themselves with wrinkles and white hair.
Among the more dangerous Instagram challenges have been the “Flaunt Your Wealth” challenge which asked people to post images of themselves falling out of luxury cars while spilling high dollar items onto the road, and the Firespray and Cinnamon challenges which hospitalized several individuals who set themselves on fire or inhaled large amounts of the dry spice.
