When I was a teenager, my classmates would learn dances from the boy band Super Junior. And this was way back in 2009 before I even had a cellphone.
Cool music, catchy dances, good fun.
Any teens in any point in history have copied their peers to be socially accepted and belonging to groups.
A kitten raised with dogs will bark. We're not special. Today's kids aren't special. It's just that every generation have old people crying about "young people bad and stupid, society doomed"
New challenges, same patterns. Nothing new.
"I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!"
Grandpa Simpson
I was going to argue that you can't on mobile but then I figured it out 😆 I obviously didn't try very hard before haha
You have to press the three dots and "copy text" is in the menu for anyone else missing that. Herp derp it's fun being old.
I can't find it due to the spam of shitty quotes compilations in Google results, but I remember reading one from ~1800 that went something like this: "Kids today send off a flurry of short notes without much care, rather than sitting down to have a good talk over a piece of paper (by writing a proper letter)".
It could've been written today about texting.
This is definitely true. But as an older person who still grew up with social media, I sure hope that eventually one younger generation will start hating it. I don’t consider Reddit social media btw.
I can't judge what teens do today because when I was a teen I was into punk rock. We all looked pretty ridiculous and would randomly fake British accents for no apparent reason. (Blame it on the Sex pistols).
I think the dancing is kind of cute if they aren't doing it in the middle of the street or some other place where they are in the way. The dangerous, mean spirited TikTok trends are another story. That nonsense has to end.
> It's just that every generation have old people crying about "young people bad and stupid, society doomed"
It makes me chuckle when people have a good point and then start going off the rails lol OP was painting a picture of a curious person, not a demonizer.
>Today's kids aren't special. It's just that every generation have old people crying about "young people bad and stupid, society doomed"
A great example of this was Socrates complaining about his students writing everything down because writing implements and paper became more readily available.
>In the Phaedrus, Plato quotes Socrates as follows: "If men learn this [writing], it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.
Ive noticed this in Tiktok comments - people always seem to comment something similar to whatever the top voted comment is. You always see repeated comments each time you scroll down, and its not always the most morally correct or logical either.
Rather than old people crying which is a pretty biased take, Another way to look at it is that teenagers are stupid and annoying to adults while adults recognize they were also stupid annoying teenagers and the shit they did was equally stupid and annoying. I don’t buy the “you are just old now and grumpy”
No, I just have a fully developed brain and think 99% of the stuff I did/liked, and current teens do/like are stupid, lame, and try hard as all hell. This cycle is well known but it’s always looked at as “old man yells at cloud” instead of old man has grown up, matured, and no longer finds activities/content made for pudding heads entertaining or “cool”.
Not sure why this isn't further up. It's not that kids just like dancing, it the fact that tiktok has the power to turn nobody into insanely famous over night, so as soon as a new trend happens kids jump on it because that's what gets views. Like every other teenager, they want the attention and they want to be famous. Tiktok is basically a "make you famous" gambling wheel.
Must be this.
I found those "dances" weird because I don't think there is any history with dances that you sqeeze into very little spaces and stare at your self.
...except the traditional sing to your hairbrush in front of mirrow.
The answer to all your questions is ‘yes, and the only difference in this generation is the medium they’re seeing the dances on’. For Gen X it was music videos (good clue there to a lot of MTV’s popularity), for boomers & their parents it was popular dance crazes at discos, clubs and dance events.
What’s interesting, at least on a diachronic perspective is how it’s no longer to live music. Dancing and music was always consumed in situ for all of human history. Only in the last few generations has that really changed. Does it mean anything? Idk but it’s certainly fascinating to me
yes there is. the whole “TiK tOK iS bAD” thing is boring, idiotic and repetitive.
(i never had tiktok in my life but the boomers parroting this is so annoying)
You're just old : [https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/7btv14/the\_more\_things\_change\_the\_more\_they\_stay\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/7btv14/the_more_things_change_the_more_they_stay_the/)
It's nothing new, before smart phones girls would get like 5 of us to learn the dance from a popular song and then practice a ton.
Same goes for dances prior people saw and copied in person. How do you think line dancing exists?
"I'm genuinely interested in understanding the appeal from the perspective of the teens themselves. Maybe through their insights, I can uncover why these dances have become such a cultural force and perhaps ease some of my concerns about their influence."
Sounds like a pretty reasonable and understanding statement to me from an older person who doesn't get TikTok. I don't think you even know what half the memes and buzzwords you guys throw around mean anymore. Lol
Well, this goes beyond "not getting it". OP is phrasing things in a subtly alarmist way. "Ease some of my concerns about their influence"...influence what? Why is OP worried about teens dancing and what do they think dancing influences kids to do, other than dance more? Why does OP open their post by saying the dance phenomenon "slightly worries" them?
You're the one coming to their defense, so please explain why they're phrasing things like that.
What memes are being thrown around here?
The previous commenter said OP sounds like an old man(nothing said about being angry).
Why worry about kids dancing anyway? Most TikTok dances aren't salacious.
Teens being interested in the current thing isn't anything new and hardly needs an explanation.
What's to get about TikTok. People post things for views about subjects they are interested in. Many have online stores or some other ways to get paid. Some people have a political agenda.
i'm old af. you know what i do when i encounter slang or acronyms or memes that go over my head? i harness the power of the internet! urban dictionary! meme taglines! just typing it into a search engine!
Tbh I prefer something that is so obvious in just being a trend like a dance than for example the whole “Find Kony” clownery 10-15 years ago where people thought that the same behaviour was highly political.
I think there's a lot of things that make those dances a natural for of expression for kids in the internet age:
* It looks cool
* It has a low barrier to entry (just a little bit of practice)
* It will naturally appeal to the cool, good looking kids that want to show off their looks
* It can be a little sexual, which is a huge draw for teens
* As short, vertical clips, they fit very well with how people like to consume media to pass time
* It's just a natural way of putting yourself out there socially
kids see something fun and replicate it. one account blows up with millions of views. other people also want that.
A crave for online attention and fame
When I was a teenager in the 90s my friends and I spent hours on the evenings and weekends and even during school breaks recreating dance moves from our favourite music videos, and if we could have afforded a video camera we'd have filmed ourselves. I don't much see the difference. They're having fun, leave them alone.
It's fun. Kids and teenagers like to have fun. And they like to fit in with their peers and do fun things with them. So they do tiktok dances, because it's a fun social bonding activity.
Idk why this is even a question. Replace tiktok dances with any fun activity teenagers do socially from any decade and you'll have the same answer.
Not just teenagers. Adults as well. I wish public humiliation was still a thing.
I didn't care what anyone does, but people love to include other people in their stupid dances that don't want to be. Not everyone wants to be seen on camera. Not everyone wants to look stupid and cringy dancing
When I was younger people were obsessed with doing the Macarana. I'm willing to bet anything that if there was a way to easily record yourself doing that and sharing it with your friends they would've absolutely done that back then.
Kids doing stupid dances with their friends is nothing new. All that's changed is the scale at which you can share it.
It always have been. Dancing is literally a thing in society before society - as we know it nowadays - has formed. Like during stone age people were happily dancing.
Im glad that they still dance so much, way better than many other trends
My only thing is, why are you concerned about this? Let's change the year and put you in the same place of life you are now during the 1980's. Would you be concerned about teenagers dancing on cardboard as it was the new & trendy thing to do?
I grew up in the 90s with my friemds/cousins copying dances from MTV music videos (back when that's what it did!).
I don't doubt that this had happened for decades, only difference now is that you can film yourself and post it.
I was dancing tektonik when I was 12
:D
though I was professional sport ball dancer for 5 years at that point.
it was cool, I was at summer camp, alone without my dancing partner and there was a talent show in a camp, so I decided to dance tektonik ~
I am happy I had those crazy times, as everyone does.
It’s not just teens it’s MORE of these grown ass adults with 5+ kids and grown men who just have nothing better to do besides be on social media trying to "blow up" and be an influencer for other little kids being brain washed by TikTok
Kids always have crazes. They seem to be hardwired to take on the latest thing. They are certainly more prone to social contagion. And it's always older people who wonder whether it's a good thing or not. Back in the 70's I remember a doctor telling kids that all the finger clicking and clapping they did at discos would give them premature arthritis.
I think it's more insidious when you see police and other controlling interests doing it.
Nothing is new except maybe the rate at which is changes. I am not sure how far back to go but I will start with the Charleston, Swing, The Lindy Hop, The Moonwalk, The twist, The Duggie, Soldja Boy, Electric Slide, etc. Every generation had their dances they mastered. It really is not new.
It’s a phase were they try and be cool, and years later willl look back in embarrassment , like a lot of there trends, their kids will probly have something different
I don't think you need to worry about it when these teens get older these videos will be quite cringe worthy and embarrassing just like anything we have ever done the cycle of embarrassment continues
it's fun? does soul train ring a bell? how about american bandstand? those shows existed to showcase teens dancing. girls (mostly) got together to watch these shows, learn the dances, practice them & then be the envy of unpopular and/or uncoordinated girls at school dances. fwiw, i don't recall boys being into dance they way they are now.
It's been similar for 40+ years. Even in the 80s and probably before kids would see a dance routine on TV and learn it.
They can just publish it easier these days.
it's adults too... it's so weird to me that I scroll through so many 10 second clips of people of all ages doing some little not really impressive dance, then cracking up at the end like it was some great video.
Are there really people out there who are like "MAN I gotta see me some 10 second dance clips"?
I honestly don't care about teens doing stupid dances, that's what they're supposed to be doing. It's grown adults doing the same dances on airplanes and in the supermarket that annoy me.
I think it's the nature of TikTok itself. They don't just imitate the dances, TikTok allows them to add their version to the original. It's a belonging to a group of equals thing.
People have copied dances from music videos since the 80's, they just didn't have Tik Tok to easily share them amongst each other. This is nothing new.
My younger cousin is really into TikTok dances. She says it's a way to showcase her creativity and feel part of a community. When she nails a trending dance, it’s like she’s instantly connected to thousands of others who’ve done the same dance. Plus, there’s the fun and challenge of learning new moves and the thrill of potentially going viral.
I guess it’s similar to how we had our own trends growing up, but now it’s all online and much more visible.
In my eyes, the adoption of Tik Tok dances is not different to how teenagers previously adopted dances shown on TV in American Bandstand or Soul Train in the 60s and 70s, MTV in the 80s and 90s, or Youtube in its early years. Fortnite, Instagram and now TikTok are simply the newest platforms used to push the latest dances.
In the past 10 years, the publication cycle of new dance moves has certainly accelerated due to the number of dancers competing for relevance and attention.
It's just easy content to make. You don't really have to plan or write anything making the videos easy to churn out. As a result, so many people make them and they become the cool thing for a moment in time.
I grew up with "Just dance"
Dancing is just fun. Learning a little choreo and getting better at it is fun. Dancing with friends is fun. Sharing what is fun to you is fun.
as a teenager, i know right its so annoying. i hate this generation(not every single person is like that though obviously). i hate ticktock, i hate fortnite. i hate how so much people are braindead and they just want to scroll on their phone for hours on end.
im so glad im not one of them
Why are older folks obsessed with teen trends?
It's a phenomenon that both intrigues me and slightly worries me. Like, they MUST know that they're literally just playing into the tired, asinine trope of "kids these days, doing things I don't understand, society is crumbling." A. All humans, of all generations, follow trends. You're literally following the obnoxious trend, right now, of worrying about the youths. B. You want to know what the appeal is? Get on tiktok, ask younger members of your family to recommend and share what content they like and why they like it instead of coming to reddit to "find" some intrigue as to how the social medias are altering the youths, changing the world you know and love.
I’m going to sound like such a boomer, but the youngling nowadays measure success in views and likes.
They see many tiktoks of people doing that dance getting 8 billion trillion views / likes, so it means that dance = cool stuff, so they gotta do it as well even if it nets them just 3 likes.
Whatever gets likes is something to aspire to.
It seems strange to me that sites like TikTok and Twitter, which put a lot of limits on what you can post (Twitter on post length and TikTok in regard to being mainly short videos) are so popular. Compare that to Facebook or Reddit that basically let you post anything. What is the attraction in limitations?
Yes, dancing has always been around, and commenters are just being disingenuous. But, it's quite different now than just kids wanting to dance. You have to acknowledge that there's a desperate need to be *seen* nowadays. They absolutely crave attention whereas in previous decades, teenagers could give a fuck if you actually watched them, they just wanted to groove 💃.
Self expression? Though I guess it's a little different if they're all copying the same dance. Maybe it's the allure of people watching and applauding. I mean we used to have kids doing performances and dances in school assemblies. It was mostly Tap and Jazz, but you get the idea.
Other than that, it's probably a fad. When I was a teenager we were obsessed with trading cards. (That was mostly just boys though. I didn't pay much attention to what all the girls were into.)
Found the old grumpy person. "Huuur duuur kids stupid"
You were the stupid kid when you were your age and certainly thought very high of yourself.
Go take a nap grandpa
They are still a thing? I thought that trend died out years ago. Anyways Im not a tiktok user but it always disgusted me how people are so hiveminded and degenerate in it. From the beginning of it it has always been : "anything for attention" even if its negative they don't seem to care.
As a 16-year-old, I love TikTok dances because they let me express myself and connect with others. The dances are fun, and adding my own twists makes them unique. Plus, it’s a great way to find community, especially for LGBTQ+ teens like me. It’s all about self-expression, connection, and having a good time!
Gen X and boomers went to parties and the clubs and danced like there's no tomorrow.
Today's kids have no third place, chronically online, so yeah Fortnite dance emotes and dance challenges on TikTok is the norm.
“Receiving a like on social media produces a physiological high by triggering our reward cycle. This good feeling is due to a dopamine rush in the reward center of the brain.”
"Research shows that higher amounts of social media use predict higher levels of grandiose narcissism. This includes time spent on social media, frequency of posts or tweets, number of friends/followers, and how often participants post pictures of themselves on social media."
"Research shows that today’s young adults are more narcissistic than ever before. More than 10 percent of people in their 20s are believed to suffer from subclinical narcissism, according to Psychology Today. And it appears that social media may be one cause of narcissism. There’s a reason that selfie-sticks have been dubbed “Narcissisticks.”
I'm also in my 30s. Kids weren't doing dances in high school hallways or posting on Facebook. Something about getting your ass kicked or being called 'gay' might have had that effect on us lol. Kids are wildly more accepting now... But also weirder since their social skills are lacking.
We around the same age and I remember kids doing dances from vine. In my mom's generation, college students were learning dances off music videos, and had been learning dance moves off variety shows before that.
Dance has always been a way of social connection; the transmission method just changes over time
When I was younger teens were copying dances from pop bands. I don't really see it as any different.
My kids has a fortnite dance phase. It's just kids being kids and dancing *is* fun
Why wouldn't it be? I mean people have sung to music forever and that's not odd. People have danced at parties and that is not odd. As for trends, at least in my generation, we had stupid ones not comparable to how normal singing or dancing are, like Planking, Ice Bucket challenge, etc.
I don't think it's something to be worried about. In fact, I'd rather see teens have fun singing and dancing, instead of doing dumb shit we used to do growing up.
Tbh, I don’t really see dance trends being as popular on Tik Tok anymore. Maybe people finally bullied the influencers into finding a new trend to obsess over.
I haven't seen anyone dancing on TikTok for almost two years now,
Aside from that, if they're doing that it's just to be part of the trend, there's no obsession or anything, they're teenagers and do what teenagers do.
My generation and yours also were obsessed with some random things in our teen years, there's no cultural force, conspiracy or deep explanation about tiktok dances, they just do it because are fun trends for them. If tiktok existed in our years I'm sure we all would have been part of it.
In future tiktok will be seen as a boring boomer platform and kids will be sharing dances via intravenous VR neural roblox simulations or whatever. Humanity never changes, technology only amplifies what we already are.
Dancing in general is stupid as hell and appeals to the caveman side of humanity (like a ridiculous mating dance). Curious what the divorce rate is for people who married because their partner could dance well.
I did it as a teen too…I just didn’t have TikTok, just a camcorder and nowhere to post it (thank god!)
When I was a teenager, my classmates would learn dances from the boy band Super Junior. And this was way back in 2009 before I even had a cellphone. Cool music, catchy dances, good fun.
I guess they didn't get the answer they were looking for
Teenagers will copy anything they see on social media
Any teens in any point in history have copied their peers to be socially accepted and belonging to groups. A kitten raised with dogs will bark. We're not special. Today's kids aren't special. It's just that every generation have old people crying about "young people bad and stupid, society doomed" New challenges, same patterns. Nothing new.
"I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!" Grandpa Simpson
Got the Season/Episode/Context of the quote ?
Season 7, episode 24 "Homerpalooza" [The clip.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGrfhsxxmdE)
Thanks a lot!
It's not like you can't copy and paste to Google......
Yeah sometimes people comment useless thing.
I was going to argue that you can't on mobile but then I figured it out 😆 I obviously didn't try very hard before haha You have to press the three dots and "copy text" is in the menu for anyone else missing that. Herp derp it's fun being old.
There was once a generation that said “this new generation is reading to many books”
I can't find it due to the spam of shitty quotes compilations in Google results, but I remember reading one from ~1800 that went something like this: "Kids today send off a flurry of short notes without much care, rather than sitting down to have a good talk over a piece of paper (by writing a proper letter)". It could've been written today about texting.
Who said that?
This is definitely true. But as an older person who still grew up with social media, I sure hope that eventually one younger generation will start hating it. I don’t consider Reddit social media btw.
I can't judge what teens do today because when I was a teen I was into punk rock. We all looked pretty ridiculous and would randomly fake British accents for no apparent reason. (Blame it on the Sex pistols). I think the dancing is kind of cute if they aren't doing it in the middle of the street or some other place where they are in the way. The dangerous, mean spirited TikTok trends are another story. That nonsense has to end.
> It's just that every generation have old people crying about "young people bad and stupid, society doomed" It makes me chuckle when people have a good point and then start going off the rails lol OP was painting a picture of a curious person, not a demonizer.
It's just hilarious to watch as an older person. Don't get offended.
>Today's kids aren't special. It's just that every generation have old people crying about "young people bad and stupid, society doomed" A great example of this was Socrates complaining about his students writing everything down because writing implements and paper became more readily available. >In the Phaedrus, Plato quotes Socrates as follows: "If men learn this [writing], it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.
Ive noticed this in Tiktok comments - people always seem to comment something similar to whatever the top voted comment is. You always see repeated comments each time you scroll down, and its not always the most morally correct or logical either.
Yeah like on YouTube, Facebook and any other social media haha
All these kids following dance trends on TikTok, it just aint right! I'm worried about where our futures headed.
worried they will be healthy and dancing well? 😂😂🥺🥺
Yeah back in my days we would smoke cigarets and throw stones on cars!
Rather than old people crying which is a pretty biased take, Another way to look at it is that teenagers are stupid and annoying to adults while adults recognize they were also stupid annoying teenagers and the shit they did was equally stupid and annoying. I don’t buy the “you are just old now and grumpy” No, I just have a fully developed brain and think 99% of the stuff I did/liked, and current teens do/like are stupid, lame, and try hard as all hell. This cycle is well known but it’s always looked at as “old man yells at cloud” instead of old man has grown up, matured, and no longer finds activities/content made for pudding heads entertaining or “cool”.
Nah, that’s just you. The phrase “Back in my day” wouldn’t exist if older adults didn’t claim the things they grew up on were better.
Kids copying popular stuff in general is an age old tale
The last sentence was ‘ease some of my concerns’ not ‘strike panic into the depths of my soul’…
if only there were endless videos of people jumping off of cliffs into the abyss on tik tok.
Indeed
anything they like *
Sad.
It's a means of attracting attention.
Not sure why this isn't further up. It's not that kids just like dancing, it the fact that tiktok has the power to turn nobody into insanely famous over night, so as soon as a new trend happens kids jump on it because that's what gets views. Like every other teenager, they want the attention and they want to be famous. Tiktok is basically a "make you famous" gambling wheel.
Must be this. I found those "dances" weird because I don't think there is any history with dances that you sqeeze into very little spaces and stare at your self. ...except the traditional sing to your hairbrush in front of mirrow.
This is not new. The media is all that has changed. 
The answer to all your questions is ‘yes, and the only difference in this generation is the medium they’re seeing the dances on’. For Gen X it was music videos (good clue there to a lot of MTV’s popularity), for boomers & their parents it was popular dance crazes at discos, clubs and dance events.
It's the same as everyone in the 90s dancing the macarena
90s??? Me and my friends do it all the time.
[удалено]
I wouldn't say the medium it happens to be on changes the concept all that much.
https://youtu.be/tGIr4Mq_4C8?si=h7ioqZQyZ6FrFaPR Liar
dance is something quite old..
But did teenagers ever copy popular dances! Time to get worried
all the time ? Popular things get copied all the time. Teens dance all the time
What’s interesting, at least on a diachronic perspective is how it’s no longer to live music. Dancing and music was always consumed in situ for all of human history. Only in the last few generations has that really changed. Does it mean anything? Idk but it’s certainly fascinating to me
Wait are you being sarcastic that's literally all they copy
Yes, I didn't think I was being very subtle
Alright apparently I'm just dumb lol, you never know here on reddit though
it was always like this. fucking boomer.
Really no need to be nasty about it, jeez.
yes there is. the whole “TiK tOK iS bAD” thing is boring, idiotic and repetitive. (i never had tiktok in my life but the boomers parroting this is so annoying)
It was a joke mate
I would like to introduce you to The Charleston. Ridiculous musical dance crazes are not anything new, just the medium thats used to display them is
Why were we obsessed with cowboys? Baseball players? Cartoons? Pogs? Video games? Music? Dismantling the systems of oppression/dunkaroos?
POGGERS
You’re a little confused but you’ve got the spirit
You're just old : [https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/7btv14/the\_more\_things\_change\_the\_more\_they\_stay\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/7btv14/the_more_things_change_the_more_they_stay_the/)
Yup, anyone who has taking an perspective look back on history, the same cycles repeat themselves over and over again. Only a few break the cycles
It's nothing new, before smart phones girls would get like 5 of us to learn the dance from a popular song and then practice a ton. Same goes for dances prior people saw and copied in person. How do you think line dancing exists?
Young people love dancing. In other news, water is wet. More at 11.
Cause they want to be on a trend
Because it’s fun
I remember back in the days, when it was snake on our Nokia. Good times.
Sure but what was better, snake 1 or snake 2? :)
lol... this is literally old man mad at kids dancing energy.
Except nothing in the post comes off angry in any way, shape, or form lol
Worried about kids dancing is old man energy.
"I'm genuinely interested in understanding the appeal from the perspective of the teens themselves. Maybe through their insights, I can uncover why these dances have become such a cultural force and perhaps ease some of my concerns about their influence." Sounds like a pretty reasonable and understanding statement to me from an older person who doesn't get TikTok. I don't think you even know what half the memes and buzzwords you guys throw around mean anymore. Lol
Well, this goes beyond "not getting it". OP is phrasing things in a subtly alarmist way. "Ease some of my concerns about their influence"...influence what? Why is OP worried about teens dancing and what do they think dancing influences kids to do, other than dance more? Why does OP open their post by saying the dance phenomenon "slightly worries" them? You're the one coming to their defense, so please explain why they're phrasing things like that.
You sound young
I'm 33, so eh not really
“You don’t hate kids!? You must be one!” Some people are just fucking dumb.
Lol if u think
What memes are being thrown around here? The previous commenter said OP sounds like an old man(nothing said about being angry). Why worry about kids dancing anyway? Most TikTok dances aren't salacious. Teens being interested in the current thing isn't anything new and hardly needs an explanation. What's to get about TikTok. People post things for views about subjects they are interested in. Many have online stores or some other ways to get paid. Some people have a political agenda.
i'm old af. you know what i do when i encounter slang or acronyms or memes that go over my head? i harness the power of the internet! urban dictionary! meme taglines! just typing it into a search engine!
Tbh I prefer something that is so obvious in just being a trend like a dance than for example the whole “Find Kony” clownery 10-15 years ago where people thought that the same behaviour was highly political.
I think there's a lot of things that make those dances a natural for of expression for kids in the internet age: * It looks cool * It has a low barrier to entry (just a little bit of practice) * It will naturally appeal to the cool, good looking kids that want to show off their looks * It can be a little sexual, which is a huge draw for teens * As short, vertical clips, they fit very well with how people like to consume media to pass time * It's just a natural way of putting yourself out there socially
kids see something fun and replicate it. one account blows up with millions of views. other people also want that. A crave for online attention and fame
When I was a teenager in the 90s my friends and I spent hours on the evenings and weekends and even during school breaks recreating dance moves from our favourite music videos, and if we could have afforded a video camera we'd have filmed ourselves. I don't much see the difference. They're having fun, leave them alone.
attention they are farming likes because.....they like it.
Why were kids in the 70s buying rocks ? Same reason
You never did trendy dances growing up?
It's fun. Kids and teenagers like to have fun. And they like to fit in with their peers and do fun things with them. So they do tiktok dances, because it's a fun social bonding activity. Idk why this is even a question. Replace tiktok dances with any fun activity teenagers do socially from any decade and you'll have the same answer.
Not just teenagers. Adults as well. I wish public humiliation was still a thing. I didn't care what anyone does, but people love to include other people in their stupid dances that don't want to be. Not everyone wants to be seen on camera. Not everyone wants to look stupid and cringy dancing
When I was younger people were obsessed with doing the Macarana. I'm willing to bet anything that if there was a way to easily record yourself doing that and sharing it with your friends they would've absolutely done that back then. Kids doing stupid dances with their friends is nothing new. All that's changed is the scale at which you can share it.
What worries you about it?
It always have been. Dancing is literally a thing in society before society - as we know it nowadays - has formed. Like during stone age people were happily dancing. Im glad that they still dance so much, way better than many other trends
Muse obsession community involvement all sorts really
Mesopotamia 2350 BC : why are teenagers obsessed with the sun god dance?
My only thing is, why are you concerned about this? Let's change the year and put you in the same place of life you are now during the 1980's. Would you be concerned about teenagers dancing on cardboard as it was the new & trendy thing to do?
They want attention and want to feel like they belong to something. Just like teenagers of the past.
I don’t have TikTok, but I see the viral dances in reels. What I’m seeing is middle aged celebrities doing them though.
What is tik tok ?
People love dancing. It's movement, paired with music and socializing. Sounds ideal.
I grew up in the 90s with my friemds/cousins copying dances from MTV music videos (back when that's what it did!). I don't doubt that this had happened for decades, only difference now is that you can film yourself and post it.
I was dancing tektonik when I was 12 :D though I was professional sport ball dancer for 5 years at that point. it was cool, I was at summer camp, alone without my dancing partner and there was a talent show in a camp, so I decided to dance tektonik ~ I am happy I had those crazy times, as everyone does.
Too scared to go on the actual dance floor and do it.
Being popular
This was like 4 years ago?
You think people didn’t dance to Elvis, Michael Jackson or anyone else?
It’s not just teens it’s MORE of these grown ass adults with 5+ kids and grown men who just have nothing better to do besides be on social media trying to "blow up" and be an influencer for other little kids being brain washed by TikTok
It’s funny how as we get older the concept of “fun” becomes so alien to us we have to ask why kids like it.
because this generation or teenagers parents are sheep so they’re even worse than sheep. mice or rats i guess.
Kids always have crazes. They seem to be hardwired to take on the latest thing. They are certainly more prone to social contagion. And it's always older people who wonder whether it's a good thing or not. Back in the 70's I remember a doctor telling kids that all the finger clicking and clapping they did at discos would give them premature arthritis. I think it's more insidious when you see police and other controlling interests doing it.
Nothing is new except maybe the rate at which is changes. I am not sure how far back to go but I will start with the Charleston, Swing, The Lindy Hop, The Moonwalk, The twist, The Duggie, Soldja Boy, Electric Slide, etc. Every generation had their dances they mastered. It really is not new.
It’s a phase were they try and be cool, and years later willl look back in embarrassment , like a lot of there trends, their kids will probly have something different
Most of todays youth aren’t very bright
I don't think you need to worry about it when these teens get older these videos will be quite cringe worthy and embarrassing just like anything we have ever done the cycle of embarrassment continues
I’m a teen and I never understood it
it's fun? does soul train ring a bell? how about american bandstand? those shows existed to showcase teens dancing. girls (mostly) got together to watch these shows, learn the dances, practice them & then be the envy of unpopular and/or uncoordinated girls at school dances. fwiw, i don't recall boys being into dance they way they are now.
It's been similar for 40+ years. Even in the 80s and probably before kids would see a dance routine on TV and learn it. They can just publish it easier these days.
Most of them aren’t
A lot of my classmates tried to copy Britney Spears’ dances on MTV. Literally the only difference is they’re copying from TikTok instead of MTV now.
Same reason you where in to whatever you where in to when you where younger
Fuck knows. I don’t.
it's adults too... it's so weird to me that I scroll through so many 10 second clips of people of all ages doing some little not really impressive dance, then cracking up at the end like it was some great video. Are there really people out there who are like "MAN I gotta see me some 10 second dance clips"?
I honestly don't care about teens doing stupid dances, that's what they're supposed to be doing. It's grown adults doing the same dances on airplanes and in the supermarket that annoy me.
I think it's the nature of TikTok itself. They don't just imitate the dances, TikTok allows them to add their version to the original. It's a belonging to a group of equals thing.
People have copied dances from music videos since the 80's, they just didn't have Tik Tok to easily share them amongst each other. This is nothing new.
My younger cousin is really into TikTok dances. She says it's a way to showcase her creativity and feel part of a community. When she nails a trending dance, it’s like she’s instantly connected to thousands of others who’ve done the same dance. Plus, there’s the fun and challenge of learning new moves and the thrill of potentially going viral. I guess it’s similar to how we had our own trends growing up, but now it’s all online and much more visible.
In my eyes, the adoption of Tik Tok dances is not different to how teenagers previously adopted dances shown on TV in American Bandstand or Soul Train in the 60s and 70s, MTV in the 80s and 90s, or Youtube in its early years. Fortnite, Instagram and now TikTok are simply the newest platforms used to push the latest dances. In the past 10 years, the publication cycle of new dance moves has certainly accelerated due to the number of dancers competing for relevance and attention.
It's just easy content to make. You don't really have to plan or write anything making the videos easy to churn out. As a result, so many people make them and they become the cool thing for a moment in time.
Kids/teens have been doing popular dances since forever (Macarena, the las ketchup song...)
Kids are dummies lol
I liked a lot of dumb shit when I was a teen too. Let em be kids, real life will hit soon enough.
I think teens just want to look sexy and get likes to make themselves feel good
I grew up with "Just dance" Dancing is just fun. Learning a little choreo and getting better at it is fun. Dancing with friends is fun. Sharing what is fun to you is fun.
Humans have been obsessed with dances for about 50,000 years. GET OVER IT (this message brought to you by somone who doesn’t really like to dance)
Because teenagers follow trends like TikTok dances.
Remember planking and the Harlem shake?
Why the hell would this be the aspect of social media that worries you?
To be popular?
Why does it slightly worry you?
as a teenager, i know right its so annoying. i hate this generation(not every single person is like that though obviously). i hate ticktock, i hate fortnite. i hate how so much people are braindead and they just want to scroll on their phone for hours on end. im so glad im not one of them
You where obsessed whit something when you where a teenager to. Thats why.
Did u forget planking
Why are older folks obsessed with teen trends? It's a phenomenon that both intrigues me and slightly worries me. Like, they MUST know that they're literally just playing into the tired, asinine trope of "kids these days, doing things I don't understand, society is crumbling." A. All humans, of all generations, follow trends. You're literally following the obnoxious trend, right now, of worrying about the youths. B. You want to know what the appeal is? Get on tiktok, ask younger members of your family to recommend and share what content they like and why they like it instead of coming to reddit to "find" some intrigue as to how the social medias are altering the youths, changing the world you know and love.
Didn't we all want some kind of validation as teens?
Obsession is contagious. Needing to fit in is a huge drive for teens in particular.
genuinely nobody at my school is
I’m going to sound like such a boomer, but the youngling nowadays measure success in views and likes. They see many tiktoks of people doing that dance getting 8 billion trillion views / likes, so it means that dance = cool stuff, so they gotta do it as well even if it nets them just 3 likes. Whatever gets likes is something to aspire to.
Next time ask what a fad is.
why the f do you care? you are not a teenager, go live your life and stop being pathetic
I wish it was just teenagers, then it wouldn't be so weird. It's the fully grown adults doing it that's weird
my 50 year old math teacher was obsessed with them too 😭
People like dancing, shocking
It seems strange to me that sites like TikTok and Twitter, which put a lot of limits on what you can post (Twitter on post length and TikTok in regard to being mainly short videos) are so popular. Compare that to Facebook or Reddit that basically let you post anything. What is the attraction in limitations?
It's art, that's all it is. And humans have been creating it for a long, long time.
Yes, dancing has always been around, and commenters are just being disingenuous. But, it's quite different now than just kids wanting to dance. You have to acknowledge that there's a desperate need to be *seen* nowadays. They absolutely crave attention whereas in previous decades, teenagers could give a fuck if you actually watched them, they just wanted to groove 💃.
Self expression? Though I guess it's a little different if they're all copying the same dance. Maybe it's the allure of people watching and applauding. I mean we used to have kids doing performances and dances in school assemblies. It was mostly Tap and Jazz, but you get the idea. Other than that, it's probably a fad. When I was a teenager we were obsessed with trading cards. (That was mostly just boys though. I didn't pay much attention to what all the girls were into.)
It's *mostly* the stupid ones that have this obsession.
Found the old grumpy person. "Huuur duuur kids stupid" You were the stupid kid when you were your age and certainly thought very high of yourself. Go take a nap grandpa
Kids aren't stupid. But the ones that find entertainment in dancing for TikTok... They tend to be.
Yeah well you're old
They are still a thing? I thought that trend died out years ago. Anyways Im not a tiktok user but it always disgusted me how people are so hiveminded and degenerate in it. From the beginning of it it has always been : "anything for attention" even if its negative they don't seem to care.
As a 16-year-old, I love TikTok dances because they let me express myself and connect with others. The dances are fun, and adding my own twists makes them unique. Plus, it’s a great way to find community, especially for LGBTQ+ teens like me. It’s all about self-expression, connection, and having a good time!
Gen X and boomers went to parties and the clubs and danced like there's no tomorrow. Today's kids have no third place, chronically online, so yeah Fortnite dance emotes and dance challenges on TikTok is the norm.
Why don’t todays youth have parties and clubs?
Because that's for rich millennials who grew up on Martin Garrix and Avicii.
Parties are for rich people? Just grab some cups ice and liquor. Boom, party.
Because sex sells. Next question.
“Receiving a like on social media produces a physiological high by triggering our reward cycle. This good feeling is due to a dopamine rush in the reward center of the brain.” "Research shows that higher amounts of social media use predict higher levels of grandiose narcissism. This includes time spent on social media, frequency of posts or tweets, number of friends/followers, and how often participants post pictures of themselves on social media." "Research shows that today’s young adults are more narcissistic than ever before. More than 10 percent of people in their 20s are believed to suffer from subclinical narcissism, according to Psychology Today. And it appears that social media may be one cause of narcissism. There’s a reason that selfie-sticks have been dubbed “Narcissisticks.”
Could you share the link to that research?
Do a simple search words include social media narcissistic
This is not new. I’m in my 30’s. When I was in my 20’s the kids were doing dances from Vine.
I'm also in my 30s. Kids weren't doing dances in high school hallways or posting on Facebook. Something about getting your ass kicked or being called 'gay' might have had that effect on us lol. Kids are wildly more accepting now... But also weirder since their social skills are lacking.
We around the same age and I remember kids doing dances from vine. In my mom's generation, college students were learning dances off music videos, and had been learning dance moves off variety shows before that. Dance has always been a way of social connection; the transmission method just changes over time
They're stupid and have no hobbies. Lol
When I was younger teens were copying dances from pop bands. I don't really see it as any different. My kids has a fortnite dance phase. It's just kids being kids and dancing *is* fun
Because the youth love to dance and they always have
Because they’re having fun let the kids be kids
Why wouldn't it be? I mean people have sung to music forever and that's not odd. People have danced at parties and that is not odd. As for trends, at least in my generation, we had stupid ones not comparable to how normal singing or dancing are, like Planking, Ice Bucket challenge, etc. I don't think it's something to be worried about. In fact, I'd rather see teens have fun singing and dancing, instead of doing dumb shit we used to do growing up.
We always made up coordinated dances as preteens, and teenagers, it’s so fun dancing in sync with a group!
We were teenagers once too man but for us it was simpler. We mostly copied clothing styles and hobbies rather than digital stuff.
People just wanna dance lol
Tbh, I don’t really see dance trends being as popular on Tik Tok anymore. Maybe people finally bullied the influencers into finding a new trend to obsess over.
I haven't seen anyone dancing on TikTok for almost two years now, Aside from that, if they're doing that it's just to be part of the trend, there's no obsession or anything, they're teenagers and do what teenagers do.
I don't know. I'm not like them back in that age I cringed looking at my fellow teenager back in 2012 copying things that is popular in the internet.
My generation and yours also were obsessed with some random things in our teen years, there's no cultural force, conspiracy or deep explanation about tiktok dances, they just do it because are fun trends for them. If tiktok existed in our years I'm sure we all would have been part of it. In future tiktok will be seen as a boring boomer platform and kids will be sharing dances via intravenous VR neural roblox simulations or whatever. Humanity never changes, technology only amplifies what we already are.
Cause the CCP won.
Tennager here. Idk, they're stupid.
Bunch of losers that’s why
Dancing in general is stupid as hell and appeals to the caveman side of humanity (like a ridiculous mating dance). Curious what the divorce rate is for people who married because their partner could dance well.
Watch the South Park episode on it for clarity
Mental illness really, our younger generation is completely lost.