Yamilet Barrera walks around the campus waving her hands, moving her body to a rhythm only she can hear.  Yamilet talks to her friends, still moving her arms, her hands, her shoulders. In class, she sits in her seat using the reflection from her Chromebook screen as a mirror, she breaks right back into her routine.  Yamilet’s preoccupation is not a new, catchy pop song. Neither is it a new video craze on YouTube. Yamilet is practicing her Tik Tok dances.

Currently, it is seemingly impossible to walk through campus without seeing someone, or an entire group practicing their Tik Tok dances.  Most of the dances are easy to learn and seem to be stuck in people’s minds throughout the day. It starts with a social media platform called Tik Tok, which lets the users with the app shoot a single 15-second video, or combine four clips to create  60-second videos. 

If any of this seems familiar, Tik Tok is a rebrand of the app music.ly.  A few years ago, the music.ly app started similar trends of people lip-syncing to their favorite songs.  Now Tik Tok takes it beyond lipsyncing with semi-choreographed dance moves.

Here is a list of the dances everyone who is interested in Tik Tok should know.  

Renegade

Renegade is a very popular dance that can be found all over Tik Tok. The original song is called “Lottery” by K camp but only about 15 seconds of the song is used for this particular dance. Instagram user _.xoxalli will be called the original creator of this dance.  But when Tik Tok user Charli D’Amelio started dancing it, it became viral at that point. There were thousands of other people dancing to it. 

Box Dance

This dance comes from the song “The Box” by Roddy Rich. The dance is an easy 15 seconds and requires a bit of energy. The Box also became very popular when influencers started to learn it, and it got all over the curated “for you” page on ordinary user’s accounts.  

Say So

The dance Say So is a dance that requires upper body movements. The writer of the song is known as Doja Cat. More than 9 million videos were made using that sound, about 154 million hashtags using “say so” and about 76 million hashtags using “say so challenge,” which tasked users with posting the dance.  The original creator of the dance is Harley Sharp.

Throw it back like a Cadillac

This dance is very fun to learn but it does require a lot of upper and lower body movements.  The creator of the song is ScrIght but as usual, there is a 60 second to 15 second part of the song that is used for the dance.  Similar to the Say So dance, Throw It Back Like a Cadillac became popular among influencers and this lead to a viral result via the “for you” pages of users.  Throw it Back does not go with a song but is actually a remix edited on Tik Tok.

By now, you may be asking yourself, does this matter?

Seemingly, there is a new viral sensation each year.  Tik Tok dances are fun ways that get students moving.  If anyone is actually recording their dances, it requires physical activity and a lot of practice to get it right.  Also, many of Tik Tok dances get users to think creatively about the choreography and where they are placed on the video frame.  Assuredly, there will be another fad soon enough and Tik Tok dances will be forgotten.