In these crazy times, Tribute.co’s #GratitudeChallenge reminds us to stay thankful

If you’ve spent even a bit of time on social media in the past couple of weeks, you’ve likely seen — along with a barrage of post-election analysis — two viral video trends: #UNameIt and the #MannequinChallenge.
To mark the Thanksgiving holiday, Williamsburg’s Tribute.co initiated a challenge of its own.
Beginning last Tuesday, the company invited people to record videos stating what their friends and family members mean to them and post those videos on Facebook and Instagram with the tag #GratitudeChallenge. The person whose post receives the most likes by Wednesday, Nov. 30 (yes, there’s still time to enter), will receive $1,000 worth of prizes from Tribute.co as well as Manhattan-based Thinx and Tushy and D.C.-based UrbanStems.
The #GratitudeChallenge is a riff on the company’s own product, a Web app that lets its users easily assemble video montages in honor of loved ones. CEO Andrew Horn came upon the idea for Tribute.co after he received a 20-minute video montage as a birthday present from his fiancée (then girlfriend) Miki Agrawal, the CEO of Thinx. He told Technical.ly it’s an experience he believes everyone should get to have, citing research from Harvard psychiatrist Robert Waldinger that quality relationships are essential to living a happy, healthy life.
“Just simply telling people how grateful you are for them is one of the easiest ways to deepen those relationships,” Horn said.
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The heads of the other participating companies expressed similar thoughts about the significance of expressing gratitude as their motivation for getting involved in the challenge.

“I still remember the first Tribute I gifted to my long distance bestie in Texas,” Monica Pereira, the CEO of Tushy, wrote to Technical.ly in an email. “A simple, two-minute message trumped all the weekly text messages and social media posts shared between us for the past ten years as it brought her to literal tears of happiness.”

More than 100 entries for the #GratitudeChallenge have come in so far, and the company already plans to make the challenge an annual tradition. It’s also helped spread word about Tribute.co’s service, Horn said. But, he pointed out, one of his goals for the challenge is to get people’s minds off of shopping, at least for a few moments.
“The holidays are often marked with a theme of consumerism, getting things,” he said. “And it’s nice to just start this holiday by emphasizing gratitude and appreciation for what and who we already have.”