By Wayne Chan
Northwest Asian Weekly
Image by Han Bui/NWAW
The social network thing? I’ve got it all worked out.
From my observation, every single post on Facebook and Twitter can be categorized into three specific types.
Videos showing how to make various recipes that involve at least one of three ingredients – butter, bacon, and Oreo cookies.
Pictures and/or videos of your friends on vacation doing something far more entertaining than what you are doing, since you are sitting at your computer watching them on vacation.
Videos of people being challenged to do something in honor of a good cause, usually involving some form of humiliation or needless discomfort.
It’s this last one that I’d like to talk about. I’m sure you’ve seen one of these or even participated in one. The most famous, of course, was the ice bucket challenge, which recently swept the country where celebrities, politicians, and everyday folks voluntarily chose to drop a bucket of ice water on their heads in support of ALS research.
While I managed to escape that challenge (as I decided just to donate to ALS Association), I wasn’t as lucky with the latest challenge. A good friend of mine nominated me for the 22-day push-up challenge to support our troops.
The challenge basically entailed filming and posting a video of myself doing 22 push-ups for 22 days. When learning of my nomination, I figured, “Why not? I haven’t done any push-ups for a while, but it’s for a good cause, and a little exercise never hurt anyone, right?”
Add to the fact that I could show everyone that I was a naturally gifted athlete, what’s not to like?
Sure enough, my first day of push-ups were a piece of cake. Just giving you a sense of what I was thinking while doing the push-ups should give you a sense of my confidence.
These push-ups are a breeze. If I wanted, I could clap in between each push-up, but maybe that’s a bit much.No need to brag. But seriously, this should be the 72 push-up challenge because this really is nothing for me. Wow, I’m done already. Maybe I should breathe a little harder so everyone watching me will think I had to try. I wonder if the rules say whether I can do handstand push-ups next time?
I finished my push-ups, stood up, looked and felt great, smiled at the camera, gave it a quick wink, and let everyone know that I would post the second day of push-ups the next day.
The following day comes, and after playing tennis with some friends, I ask one of them to film me doing my second day of push-ups. I had just finished playing a set of tennis without even really breaking a sweat, and I figured, why not just get this second round of the push-up challenge out of the way. I proceeded to drop to the ground to get ready.
As I started my first push-up, here’s what I was thinking.
Gyahhhhhhh!!! What the heck was that?
It was like someone shoved a garden hoe into both my shoulder blades.
You know how you can use a muscle in your body that you usually don’t use? How does that muscle feel the next day? Here, let me tell you.
Holy Schlamole! Is somebody walking on my back with high heels? What is that!?! Ahhh!! For the love of all things decent, somebody make this stop! I’ll give you 20 bucks to turn off that camera … yowza! I’ve got 19 more to do! I need a doctor! What sadist came up with this stupid challenge?? This can’t be legal I’m going to need a shot of B12 and aspirin after this! I think my arms are going to fall off Gyahhhhhh!
Of course, all of this was recorded for posterity and posted to social media. The only saving grace is that it’s hard to hear all of my screaming over the laughter of my friends standing next to me.
Wayne Chan can be reached as info@nwasianweekly.com.