The Until Tomorrow Challenge

The argument

The “Until Tomorrow Challenge” involves posting an embarrassing photo of yourself with the caption reading “Until Tomorrow,” without any other text. They can’t provide any other explanation for why they posted the picture. For each person that likes that post, the person who posted the photo sends them a direct message telling them to post their own embarrassing photo and leave it up for at least 24 hours. The original poster can delete their embarrassing photo after 24 hours. This challenge has been taking place mostly on the social media platforms Instagram and TikTok. There were over two million posts under the hashtag #untiltomorrow on Instagram at its peak, making this a very popular challenge. Unfortunately, since most people delete their posts after 24 hours, that number has since gone down. There doesn’t seem to be a definitive origin of the “Until Tomorrow Challenge.” People began posting about the challenge around March, after quarantine had started. To amass over two million posts in this short period of time is quite impressive and a key aspect of this challenge’s success. This challenge has probably been successful since it’s very easy to complete and since it is accessible to basically anyone besides those who are too insecure to share embarrassing photos of themselves. Though there hasn’t been any big celebrities participating in this challenge, perhaps its accessibility to any average person is part of what makes it so successful. You don’t need to be a creative or athletic person to complete this challenge, and completing the challenge requires very little time and effort. Additionally, it’s a fun way to see a different side of your friends and to show off a sense of humor to your social media following. Lastly, this challenge is light-hearted and widely appealing, unlike other challenges that align with certain fundraising groups or ideologies that may dissuade some people from participating.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Other challenges have gotten lots of buzz with celebrities and news outlets. This has made other challenges massively popular, whereas this challenge hasn't gotten nearly as much public attention. Additionally, some other challenges have a meaningful message (such as raising awareness for a cause or celebrating diversity), which this challenge does not. This challenge also asks users to only participate for 24 hours and then delete their participation, which makes the challenge reach much less people than if the posts stayed up (though that would defeat the purpose of the challenge). For these reasons, this challenge is not as successful as other challenges.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] This describes the mechanic and establishes nothing about success. What it describes is a chain-letter structure, which inflates counts through obligation rather than appeal — a fact about how the number was produced that the argument treats as evidence of popularity. [Rejecting P2] The figure is unsourced, and the premise concedes in the same breath that the posts were deleted, which means a peak hashtag count records cumulative participation rather than sustained reach. The counter presses this directly: content designed to vanish within a day reaches far fewer people than content that stays up. [Rejecting P3] Being easy and light-hearted may well explain spread, but the premise offers it as though ease were the only variable, and the counter names the others — celebrity participation and news coverage, which drove the challenges that became household names. Nothing here compares this challenge against those on any common measure, which is what a claim about the most successful requires.