SA ranked seventh in the top countries participating in the #10YearChallenge on social media.
Acumen Media's analysis of the week's trending topics on social media revealed that most participants in the challenge were American, followed by Nigerian.
However, the popularity of the challenge in SA was high enough to secure the country a spot in the top 10.
"The #10YearChallenge came out this week and took all social media platforms by storm. Facebookers and Instagrammers took up the challenge as it was intended, posting a 10-year-old picture of themselves alongside a current picture, where Twitter made fun of the concept with memes," said Acumen social media analyst Tonya Khoury.
The engagement rate was recorded as over 6.3 million and was climbing by 450% daily.
The challenge had 909,000 unique mentions in the past few days.
"Slightly more men than women participated. This surprised me because a great deal of the appeal of the challenge is the ego, specifically if a person believes they look good for a decade long of wear. I wonder how many people did it and then didn’t share it," Khoury said.
The director of one of SA's leading communication firms, ByDesign Communications, Kevin Welman, said the #10YearChallenge appealed to users as it was fun and easy.
"People love looking at pictures of themselves and of people whom they choose to follow. The time of year is also important with the new year comes renewal and the #10YearChallenge is all about renewal," he said.
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