Internet Folklore

“TikTok Dances”

HH

Quechee, Vermont

October 2020

Informant data: HH is a senior at Dartmouth College majoring in Biology with a concentration in genetics. She was born in Cologne, Germany in October of 1998, but now resides in Lawrence Township, New Jersey. 

Contextual data: HH has a TikTok account with several videos of her dancing with friends, sorority sisters, and family members. She knows several dances, roughly five, that she learned as a fun way to bond with friends or out of boredom. While she doesn’t follow TikTok influencers that perform dances, she discovered dances through their popularity, through Twitter, or through seeing parodies. She considered performing “Laxed Siren Beat” to highlight her German heritage, since the dance was commonly used to spotlight different cultures. HH has a video dancing to “Say So” with her sorority sisters. She often picked dances to learn based on their popularity, relative simplicity, or if she liked the song and would learn the songs from watching tutorials or viewing the TikTok enough times to pick it up. Her ‘for you page’ has a greater focus on educational content, food recipes, comedy, and skincare. 

MA

Hanover, New Hampshire

Dartmouth College

RUSS 13 Fall 2020