Title: “Cannibal”

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore, dance routine
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: S.M.
• Date Collected: 11-15-20

Informant Data:

• S.M. was born in Virginia on March 15, 1999. She was raised by a single mother who works as a high school arts teacher and administrator in Windsor, Virginia. Her family origins are Puerto-Rican and Western European, primarily Irish and Scottish. She is a senior at Dartmouth College studying Theater, English, and Russian.

Contextual Data:

• S.M. downloaded TikTok in January of 2020 and uses the app for at least twenty minutes everyday. It is a way for her to pass the time.

Item:

• There is a choreographed routine that is based on the lyrics of the “Cannibal” audio. It involves moving hands from your shoulders to your waist, serving an invisible platter like a waiter, and then drinking from a tea cup formed by your thumb and pinky fingers.

Dance Example:RPReplay_Final1605542787

Informant’s Comments:

• Really catchy. The main moves she remembers is serving a platter and drinking from a cup formed by your hands.

Collector’s Comments:

• This dance became extremely popular in the beginning of the year 2020.

Collector’s Name: Savannah Miller

Tags/Keywords:

• Customary Lore
• Dance
• Internet Folklore

Title: “Say So”

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore, dance routine
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: I.T.
• Date Collected: 11-04-20

Informant Data:

• I.T. grew up in a small town in Northern California called Orinda. She attended public elementary, middle and high school. She is first generation Vietnamese and a senior studying at UC Santa Cruz. She is twenty years old.

Contextual Data:

• I.T. does not have a Tiktok account or the Tiktok app downloaded, however has still been involved in making Tik Tok videos through her friends accounts. She however, is still exposed to the app through her explore page on a different social media app, called Instagram. Instagram reposts Tiktok videos through ‘Reels’, which is Instagrams implementation of Tiktok within their app.

Item:

• This dance is about 20 seconds long. It involves shaking your hands out to the side twice, then pretending to knock the top of your head. The dancer then punches the air, making a circle with their fist. The dancer then rolls their body before doing the hand shakes again.

Dance Example:v09044c90000bnu0diud9kv2cfscm540

Informant’s Comments:

• Mainly knows the moves involving the punch and roll.

Collector’s Comments:

• This dance is of a moderate difficulty. The song’s dance was picked up by the original recording artist Doja Cat and used as a catalyst to create a music video for the song. The video features Doja Cat performing the TikTok dance.

Collector’s Name: Rachelle Louie

Tags/Keywords:

• Customary Lore
• Dance
• Internet Folklore

Title: Laxed Siren Beat

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore, dance routine
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: S.K.
• Date Collected: 10-20-20

Informant Data:

• S.K. was born in December of 1998 and has lived in Rockville, Maryland her whole life. She is a current senior at Dartmouth College studying Biology and Anthropology. She is white, specifically Ukrainian, and a first generation American.

Contextual Data:

• S.K. downloaded TikTok in the summer of 2020 following the coronavirus quarantine. She considers herself barely a user of the app, spending less than fifteen minutes on the app a day. However, she still enjoys watching TikTok dances and has even learned some of them from repeatedly seeing them on her For You Page.

Item:

• This is a simple dance incorporating three hand raises throughout the course of this ten second audio. Step one: Take your right hand from your left shoulder, to the right shoulder, raise it in the air, and then move side to side. Step two: Take your left hand from your right shoulder, to the left shoulder, raise it in the air, and then move side to side. Step three: Take both hands and repeat the actions of step one and step two at the same time.

Dance Example: RPReplay_Final1603309353

Informant’s Comments:

• Super easy to learn. Didn’t even try to.

Collector’s Comments:

• This dance was super fun and an easy way for non-dancers to participate in a TikTok dance.

Collector’s Name: Savannah Miller

Tags/Keywords:

• Customary Lore
• Dance
• Internet Folklore