When famous TikTokers performed 19-year-old PR student Nicole Bloomgarden’s routine at an NBA game in February 2020, she decided it was time she got credit for her dance. “The dancing on TikTok obviously isn’t super-duper intricate or expert, but because I have training, I’m able to execute movements in a way that’s different from someone who doesn’t have that experience, it looks a lot more natural,” he says. In total, Le has nine years of dance training. In May 2020, he began to rent a luxurious house (complete with indoor and outdoor pools) with his influencer earnings. Le is paid by both record labels and brands to promote music and products – he most frequently works with an energy drinks company and a clothing brand. “Honestly, I made that dance up in ten minutes and we recorded it immediately after,” says Le, who earns all of his income posting content on TikTok and Instagram. Throw your arms to one side and move them in sync to the lyric “wrists, wrists, wrists, wrists” – then you’ve got the gist, gist, gist, gist. Wave your hands at “Hey Julie”, and pull at your shirt four times when you hear “drip, drip, drip, drip”. In this case, the lyrics prove highly instructional. Elsewhere, keen TikTokers often translate hit songs into their own languages in order to add their own spin to dance crazes. Though nearly four times as many people had downloaded TikTok in India than in the US (before India banned the app in July), TikTok’s 2019 round-up of its most popular videos demonstrated that Americans dominate the app, possibly because of the popularity of the English language and American music (this could change in the future as the US moves to restrict TikTok). This is partly because the Chinese version of the app – Douyin – is run separately due to government restrictions. The app has no in-built revenue-making mechanism like YouTube’s AdSense, and so for many TikTokers tons of views don’t equate to tons of money.ĭespite TikTok’s Chinese origins, seven of the top ten most-followed TikTokers in the world are American. Still, other TikTokers struggle to earn money. Earlier this year, Harmon posted her first piece of sponsored content (for Warner Bros’ new Scooby-Doo movie) and also launched her own merchandise range hoodies sell for $45 (£36) on her official site. Le now earns 80 per cent of his income from TikTok he has more than 23 million followers, and labels have paid him to promote their music. “My whole life revolves around TikTok,” says 20-year-old influencer Michael Le, who frequently posts three videos a day to the app. It’s no wonder choreographers want credit – a successful TikTok account can bring in money from brands who pay influencers to post sponsored content and adverts on their profiles. “I love seeing people come together and have fun,” says the routine’s original choreographer, 14-year-old Jalaiah Harmon. The dance was shared by everyone from Stranger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown to former FLOTUS Michelle Obama, and was covered everywhere from the New York Times to The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In the six months spanning September 2019 to February 2020, various renditions of the Renegade – a routine set to the hip-hop song “Lottery” by K CAMP – were viewed over 1.6 billion times on the app. Every week, a different dance craze goes viral, prompting living rooms around the globe to shake as viewers join in the fun. Yet it is dancing that TikTok is best known for. Immensely popular with Generation Z, TikTok hosts short clips – ranging from three to 60 seconds – in which people lip-sync, perform skits, or take on challenges. In just three years, the video-sharing app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has been downloaded over a billion times, making it the seventh most downloaded app of the decade. In the 90s and early 2000s, only the occasional Macarena inspired a school dance hall to move in sync. Yet while you could peer into an 1870s debutante ball or a 1970s disco and see people following a set of steps, our modern era seems altogether less structured. From the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance of the Middle Ages (in which residents of the Staffordshire village run around with reindeer antlers) to the traditional Greek Zonaradiko (whereby dancers hold on to one another’s belts), we have always loved a good routine. There is, and seemingly always has been, a dance for every letter of the alphabet.
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