Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The Democratization of Choreography

Back in 2020, a teenager in Los Angeles named Charli D'Amelio posted a fifteen-second video of herself dancing to a remix of "Say So" by Doja Cat. Within weeks, 100 million people had recreated that exact sequence. Not celebrities. Not trained dancers. Millions of ordinary people, in their bedrooms, kitchens, and backyards, learning and performing the same movement.

This moment marked something genuinely unprecedented in cultural history. For the first time, a single piece of choreography achieved near-universal reach without requiring money, fame, or access to traditional gatekeepers. The dance spread not through television broadcasts or concert tours, but through the organic sharing mechanisms of a social platform designed for exactly this kind of virality.

Traditional folk music worked similarly, in a way. People in villages learned songs from their neighbors, adapted them, changed the lyrics, passed them along. The process was slow—measured in years and generations—but the fundamental mechanism was identical: accessible creativity spreading through communities without institutional intermediaries.

TikTok dances compress that timeline into days. The accessibility is even more radical. You don't need an instrument. You don't need to be able to sing. You just need your phone and your body.

From Entertainment to Language

The most fascinating aspect of TikTok dances isn't their viral reach—it's how they've become a genuine form of communication. They're no longer just entertainment. They're a language.

Consider the "Renegade" dance, created by a 14-year-old girl named Jalaiah Harmon in 2019. It spawned thousands of variations. Some people performed it identically. Others remixed it, changed it, adapted it to their own style. Some performed it ironically. Others performed it as genuine expression. The dance itself became a text that could be read in multiple ways, interpreted differently depending on context and execution.

This is exactly how folk traditions operate. A sea shanty means something different when sung by sailors than when sung by contemporary musicians in concert halls. The context changes the meaning. The performer's interpretation matters as much as the original composition.

What makes TikTok dances even more interesting is their inherent inclusivity. Unlike folk music traditions that sometimes remained restricted to specific cultures or communities, TikTok dances are explicitly designed for global participation. A kid in Nigeria learns the same dance as a kid in Norway. They're performing the same cultural text, even if they've never met and don't share a language.

The Generational Identity Factory

Every generation has had its cultural markers—the music, the fashion, the slang that defines "us" versus "them." For Gen Z, TikTok dances have become one of the most recognizable markers of group identity.

When someone performs a TikTok dance well, we instantly recognize them as someone who participates in internet culture, who understands contemporary references, who belongs to a certain digital generation. It's tribal in the best sense of the word. It says: "I'm part of your community. I speak your language."

The dances also function as a form of protest and solidarity. During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the "Iced Tea" dance and others became ways for people to express political commitment while maintaining the inherently joyful, celebratory nature of dance itself. They weren't angry songs or angry statements—they were joyful, defiant expressions of presence and community. The dance format allowed people to express solidarity in a way that felt generationally authentic.

Similarly, LGBTQ+ communities have used TikTok dances to build visibility and celebrate identity. Queer creators have dominated many of the most popular dance trends, shaping not just what people dance to, but whose music gets promoted, whose creativity gets centered, whose stories get told.

The Algorithm as Curator

Here's where things get complicated. Unlike traditional folk music, which spreads organically through communities, TikTok dances spread through algorithmic amplification. The platform's recommendation system decides which dances become massive and which disappear.

This creates a strange hybrid form. The dances are democratic in that anyone can create and participate. But the spread is determined by corporate algorithms optimizing for engagement. A dance created by someone with millions of followers spreads faster than an equally creative dance from someone with 100 followers.

This isn't entirely unlike how media companies shaped folk music in previous generations—promoting certain artists, certain songs, certain narratives while others disappeared. But the scale and speed are unprecedented. And the invisibility of the process makes it particularly powerful. Most people don't think about the algorithm when learning a dance. It feels natural and organic, even though it's shaped by invisible corporate machinery.

Why This Matters

TikTok dances represent something genuinely new in human culture: a form of widespread, participatory creativity that spans the globe in days, that requires no special skills or equipment, and that creates genuine shared identity across vastly different communities.

They're also deeply flawed. Creators of color often see their dances copied by white creators who receive more credit and resources. The algorithm's optimization for engagement sometimes promotes dances that are ultimately empty or exploitative. And the rapid pace of trend cycles means that yesterday's cultural moment is already forgotten.

But the core innovation remains: we've created a genuine folk art form for the digital age. These aren't performances we consume passively. They're texts we participate in, adapt, and make our own. Like all living traditions, they're messy, contradictory, and sometimes frustrating. They're also genuinely beautiful—evidence that human creativity and the desire to move together doesn't require wealth, fame, or permission.

The fact that this is happening through an algorithm designed to addict us to our phones is ironic, perhaps troubling. But it's also undeniable: something real and valuable is being created here. The dances will probably change. TikTok might not last. But the fundamental impulse—to learn from each other, to move together, to build shared culture—that's eternal. The platform is just the medium.