Even Colombia’s Marxist Guerrillas Did the Mannequin Challenge, So It’s Basically Over

Just when you thought you’d seen everything, a Marxist guerrilla army known for sowing terror throughout the Colombian countryside goes and takes a crack at the Mannequin Challenge – and nothing makes sense anymore.

Thats right, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) are continuing their public relations makeover with a viral internet challenge that has stoked the creativity of everyone from Hillary Clinton and Paul McCartney, to these poor dopes. The social media-savvy gesture comes in the wake of an historic peace deal between the 53-year-old rebel army and the administration of Colombia president Juan Manuel Santos, which was tragically rejected in a recent referendum.

Despite the setback, the FARC seems intent on reimagining itself as a legitimate political party, and understandably needs to scrub its image a bit after becoming all but synonymous with drug trafficking, kidnapping, and car bombings. The one minute, 49-second video released through their official Youtube channel goes a step in the right direction with a walk through what appears to be one of the army’s itinerate jungle encampments.

Rather than showing us child soldiers and cachets of automatic weapons, we’re treated to a scene that could be taken out of a liberal arts college campus: young men donning scarves contemplate their macbook screens, a thoughtful quartet thinks through a chess maneuver, an informal study group debates some hot topic, and a would-be photographer with a Canon 5D snaps a picture of what we can only assume is a hostage.

The whole thing ends with a shot of the FARC’s new peacenik logo: two hands grasping in the form of a heart. It’s a noble effort at reinvention, but with 11,000 views at the time of writing, it might take more than a Youtube video to change the hearts and minds of the Colombian people.