Introducing The Twizzler Challenge: The Latest Awkward Awareness Campaign That Will Soon Be Everywhere

IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN: the internets have spat out a fun new trend to get all the virals.

The #TwizzlerChallenge involves two people filming themselves eating a single piece of liquorice from either end and then — gasp — kind of kissing in the middle like the dogs in Lady And The Tramp. Why would this be of interest to anyone? What purpose does it serve? Why should you share your confectionary with anyone ever?

Here’s what we know so far:

Just like #IceBucketChallenge which came before it, #TwizzlerChallenge is an awareness and fundraising campaign; this one is all about autism.

This all started a few nights ago during Comedy Central’s variety special Night Of Too Many Stars: a fundraiser for the support organisation, New York Collaborate For Autism. During the show, Maya Rudolph sang things, someone fed food into Paul Rudd’s mouth like a baby bird, Weird Al performed a Star Wars version of ‘Lola’ called ‘Yoda’, and Louis CK was an auctioneer for some reason, but the most enduring bit seems to be one of the least exciting: when someone tweeted in asking Uzo Aduba from Orange Is The New Black and Willie Geist of the Today show to do the liquorice thing.

Morning show host Meredith Share quickly got Geist to re-enact the bit on her show before donating $5,000 to the cause.

She then challenged Geist’s colleagues Kathy Lee and Matt Lauer to the task the next morning as well as Billy Bush and Kit Hoover on Access Hollywood. Hope you like watching middle-aged people awkwardly satiating years of sexual tension!

Then things got stepped up a notch yesterday, when Lena Dunham and Allison Williams got in on the action.

Here @aw and I are taking the #TwizzlerChallenge ❤️pass it on! twizzlerchallengeforautism.org #NightofTooManyStars #NYC4a

A video posted by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on Mar 18, 2015 at 9:28am PDT

In their follow-up video, they challenged Katie Lowes and Guillermo Diaz from Scandal, Rita Wilson and Larry David, and Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson from Broad City. Unfortunately, your least favourite of those three couples are the only ones yet to respond:

Hey @lenadunham! Thanks for nominating me & @guillermodiazreal for the #twizzlerchallenge! Now go for it – @mattmcgorry @jackfalaheeofficial A video posted by Katie Lowes (@ktqlowes) on Mar 18, 2015 at 3:51pm PDT

Despite only being very new in the US, the trend has somehow already made its way to Australia too. This morning more than one douchey radio duo tried it out on air despite the fact that radio is not a very good medium for watching people kiss.

“Ew, but we’re both boys!” etc etc.

FYI Larry Emdur’s already responded to their nomination because of course has.

Challenge Accepted !!!! In the true spirit of the #twizzlerchallenge @wippa1 and @fitzy18 went ALL THE WAY !! Then nominated @kyliegillies and Me. We started strong but Kylie cut me off in my prime @themorningshowon7 ..We nominate @sallyobermeder and @tomwilliams70 to do it for Autism Awareness at 2pm on @tdeon7 Pucker Up Tommy !!!

A photo posted by @larryemdur on Mar 18, 2015 at 7:02pm PDT

Just like the Ice Bucket Challenge, as long as people are actually using this to talk about (and fund!) the cause, it can’t be anything but a good thing.

In Australia, national groups like Autism Awareness and Autism Spectrum do great work to help children diagnosed with autism as well as their families. If you would like to give them some money to help continue this, that’s great! If you’d also like to sneakily kiss someone while doing that, go for it!

Hopefully this knowledge that it’s serving a greater good will help you get through the invariable cringe-fest that’s coming tomorrow morning when Karl Stefanovic gets wind of it all.

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The original article referred to autism as a “disease”, which we now understand to be incorrect and offensive to many within the autistic community.