Mark Wahlberg's 40-Day Challenge

About

Mark Wahlberg's 40-Day Challenge refers to a TV interview in which American actor Mark Wahlberg promoted a "40-Day Challenge" at the NBC News morning show TODAY in February 2023 about the Christian, specifically Catholic, period of fasting and repentance known as Lent. A still image from that interview became a meme on social media over the following years, especially with Christians, who humorously refer to Lent as "Mark Wahlberg's 40-Day challenge."

Origin

On February 22nd, 2023, American actor Mark Wahlberg appeared on the TODAY morning show to talk about his faith, the practice of Lent and his participation in the "40-day challenge." The full interview was posted on YouTube^[1] that day, amassing more than 682,000 views and 16,000 likes in a year.

Spread

A day later, on February 23rd, 2023, X^[2] user @SophieHaigney posted a still image from Wahlberg's TODAY interview and the caption, "Rebranding Lent as 'Mark Wahlberg’s 40 day challenge.'” The post (shown below) amassed over 29,000 likes and 2,500 retweets in a year.

Wahlberg's image macro from the interview resurfaced in February 2024 as netizens joked about the start of Lent using the image as a meme. For example, on February 14th, 2024, X^[3] user @joshcarlosjosh posted Mark's image paired with the caption "happy 'Mark Wahlberg's 40-day challenge' to all who observe!" The post (shown below, left) received roughly 70 likes and 10 retweets in a few hours.

On the same day, X^[4] user @RebelEconProf used the same image alongside the caption "Shoutout to all my fellow Catholics who will be starting Mark Wahlberg’s 40-day challenge today, or as we call it, Lent." The tweet (shown below, right) received over 130 likes and 14 retweets in a few hours.

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