The #DontJudgeChallenge: Teens Protest Body Shaming Through Hashtag

— -- A bizarre beauty trend is blowing up on social media where teens are posting thousands of videos with the hashtag, “dontjudgechallenge,” mocking glamour shots by intentionally making themselves look exceptionally unattractive.

The hashtag has been used more than 2 million times in less than two weeks.

“Essentially the idea was, ‘This is not what I really look like, but you judged me,’” Dr. Kavita Ajmere, a child and adolescent psychologist, told ABC News. “I think that’s the awareness that they wanted to create.

The trend started off as a campaign for teens taking a stand against body-shaming, attempting to make themselves appear less attractive by painting on thick unibrows, acne, missing teeth and wearing glasses, then transforming into what they perceive as “beautiful.”

But now the popular hashtag is causing backlash online with thousands criticizing it, saying the videos don’t empower people but rather mock them, doing more harm than good.“Shouldn’t ‘Don’t Judge Me’ mean you shouldn’t care about what someone looks like at all?,” online user Campbell Urrutia asked in a video. “You shouldn’t care about if they’re hot or not.”

“When you do things like beauty shaming, you’re still focusing on someone’s external world and you’re really not getting to know somebody,” Ajmere added.

One 17-year-old named Abigail took to Twitter to voice her outrage, saying the movement missed its mark.

“The ‘Don’t Judge Challenge’ is so stupid,” she said in an online video. “You’re making it seem like people who wear glasses, who have acne, who don’t have good eyebrows are ugly and unattractive. It makes no sense.”

A new hashtag called “Beauty In All Challenge” is now striking back, encouraging people to embrace their true beauty.

“We need to accept each other for who we are,” said Ajmere. “We need to accept ourselves for who we are."