TikTok's latest trend has parents dancing like it's the '80s

Videos of parents demonstrating their actions have had a surprise success on a site where youth reigns supreme — perhaps because this trend is not not played for laughs.
TikTok can add a new skill to its resume: the disco time machine.
The social platform, normally populated by a Gen Z members' dance parade — mostly in short, choreographed routines that have been practiced and perfected — has recently been infused with the energy of a demographic surprising: their Gen X parents. In viral videos, their adult children ask the parents to dance like they would back in the day to the worm sonic ear of 1984's "Smalltown Boy", by British synth-pop group Bronski Beat. Most of the posts are tagged #momdancechallenge, #daddancechallenge or #80sdancechallenge, and they have racked up tens of millions of views.
The reactions were perhaps unexpected, because instead of for laughs, the videos are cool, really cool, serving as a portal to another era: when dance was more often improvised and spontaneous, when people felt the rhythm and found the rhythm organically, moving without the constraints of a horizontal height/width ratio.
When Valérie Martinez, 23, asked her mother, Yeanne Velazquez, 58, to participate, it was before the challenge went viral, and they had not prepared at all. “I hadn’t even played the song for her before,” Martinez said in a phone interview this week alongside her mother. But Martinez was sure Velazquez would give birth, because her motheralwaysdances, she said.
It was nostalgic for Velazquez, who said that when the song was popular, she was about 19 and would go dancing in a club or two in Puerto Rico, where she lived. Today, she and her daughter live in Florida.
@thatpersianqt she ate with this one I'm afraid #fyp #foryou #80s #80sdancechallenge #momsoftiktok #80smusic ♬ Smalltown Boy - Bronski Beat @_miamimonkey Do we all have the same mom?

Technology May 26, 2024 0 5 Add to Reading List

TikTok's latest trend has parents dancing like it's the '80s

Videos of parents demonstrating their actions have had a surprise success on a site where youth reigns supreme — perhaps because this trend is not not played for laughs.

TikTok can add a new skill to its resume: the disco time machine.

The social platform, normally populated by a Gen Z members' dance parade — mostly in short, choreographed routines that have been practiced and perfected — has recently been infused with the energy of a demographic surprising: their Gen X parents. In viral videos, their adult children ask the parents to dance like they would back in the day to the worm sonic ear of 1984's "Smalltown Boy", by British synth-pop group Bronski Beat. Most of the posts are tagged #momdancechallenge, #daddancechallenge or #80sdancechallenge, and they have racked up tens of millions of views.

The reactions were perhaps unexpected, because instead of for laughs, the videos are cool, really cool, serving as a portal to another era: when dance was more often improvised and spontaneous, when people felt the rhythm and found the rhythm organically, moving without the constraints of a horizontal height/width ratio.

When Valérie Martinez, 23, asked her mother, Yeanne Velazquez, 58, to participate, it was before the challenge went viral, and they had not prepared at all. “I hadn’t even played the song for her before,” Martinez said in a phone interview this week alongside her mother. But Martinez was sure Velazquez would give birth, because her motheralwaysdances, she said.

It was nostalgic for Velazquez, who said that when the song was popular, she was about 19 and would go dancing in a club or two in Puerto Rico, where she lived. Today, she and her daughter live in Florida.

@thatpersianqt she ate with this one I'm afraid #fyp #foryou #80s #80sdancechallenge #momsoftiktok #80smusic ♬ Smalltown Boy - Bronski Beat @_miamimonkey Do we all have the same mom?