Throw Your Vans Challenge

Submission 4,789

About

Throw Your Vans Challenge refers to a series of videos posted to Twitter which test the hypothesis that if one tosses their Vans sneakers, they will always land face up.

Origin

On March 2nd, 2019, Twitter user @ibelievethehype^[1] posted a video of them throwing their Vans sneakers with the caption "Did you know it doesn’t matter how you throw your vans they will land facing up," gaining over 67,000 retweets and 176,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

Over the following several days, other Twitter users tested the hypothesis. Some popular examples include a tweet by @BryceMcKenny1 that gained over 29,000 retweets and 125,000 likes (shown below, top) and a tweet by @rxmsta that gained over 1,600 retweets and 10,000 likes (shown below, bottom).

Some Twitter users attempted the challenge but found it did not work. Users @Jbarra117 and @ericsports both posted results in which their shoes landed on their side (shown below).

User @SarahGMcBeauty tweeted a possible explanation for why the shoes seemed to always land face up, writing "Everyone shocked that Vans always land right-side-up are seemingly forgetting that they are skate shoes, which are specifically designed with a particular weight imbalance to help you land as often as possible. Like dude……. that’s how shoes work" (shown below). The challenge was covered by Twitter Moments.^[2]

Throw Your Crocs Challenge

Following the popularity of the Throw Your Vans Challenge, on March 4th, 2019, Twitter^[3] user @susanna__07 responded to the original @ibelievthehype tweet with a video of a pair of Crocs clogs being thrown. They captioned the post, "Mind blown…it works with CROCS TOO!!!"

Less than one hour later, Twitter^[4] user @RidiculousDak tweeted a video of a and the caption, "I'll see your vans and raise you crocs." The tweet received 19,000 retweets and 76,000 likes in two days (shown below).

On March 5th, Twitter^[5] published a Moments page on the trend. Several media outlets covered the challenge, as well, including Yahoo,^[6] Highsnobiety^[7] and more.