#NY Post’s Instagram 2020 Challenge proves this year has been an eternity

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The Post also took the 2020 Challenge sparked by Reese Witherspoon — and other celebrities quickly jumped on the trend.
New York Post composite

Reese Witherspoon challenged the world to visualize how 2020 has embodied the five stages of grief — and The Post took her up on it.

The “Legally Blonde” and “Big Little Lies” actress is credited with sparking the now viral 2020 Challenge, where people post a photo collage, documenting how they felt overall each miserable month with a different facial expression. Due to the madness of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has made many months feel stuck on a time loop, the challenge is more an exercise in finding increasingly desperate looking photos to assign the seasons than an actual emotion diary.

“Yup. #2020challenge,” Witherspoon, 44, captioned the post which sparked the trend on her Instagram since Wednesday. In the nine-photo collage of her hilarious downfall, Witherspoon looks hopeful in January, accepting in February, panicked in March, distraught in both April and May, and then uses the same photo showing a malaise of misery in June, July, August and September. The post has racked up over 1.4 million likes.

The Post’s “challenge” details how we kicked off this decade reporting on Jennifer Aniston’s infamous hug with Brad Pitt and A-Rod’s interest in buying the Mets before the virus hit in March. Next up: The market continued to plummet in April, New York City remained closed up in May, June and July, and quarantine fatigue set in harder than ever this month — and probably next, too.

Following Witherspoon’s lead, other celebrities quickly jumped on the trend.

“@reesewitherspoon I feel you on #2020 girl…,” Charlize Theron captioned her challenge submission post. Theron used different images for April and May, her distress appearing to become more manic before tempering to a look of defeat in June and rage in July, August and September.

Michelle Pfeiffer hopefully anticipated in her post that she’ll be at least more composed in her grief by September, while Naomi Watts aspires to be thriving despite this new reality.

July looks like it was Sarah Paulson’s worst month this year, although August is proving a close second, and for Mindy Kaling too. Kerry Washington‘s July was fraught, based on her choice of photo, her August manic, and she plans to lean into the mania come September.

A “Sex and The City,” fan account anticipates Sarah Jessica Parker feeling the same level of exhaustion she felt in July to continue through the rest of this month and next.

And there could be a whole separate, meta 2020 challenge to document the viral trends which came out each month, from Dolly Parton’s January meme — which ended up aiding the British police — to April’s “All in Challenge,” and May’s pants-peeing and TikTok-inspired relationship insight challenges.