The Renegade Dance (Renegade
henceforth) first appeared on the social media platform Instagram in September
2019 and became popular over the next two months on TikTok, according to “Know
Your Meme,” a website that “documents Internet phenomena” (Know Your Meme,
2020). The Renegade, in short, is a viral dance to the song “Lottery” by K Camp
(Renegade, 2020). This dance originated on Sept. 25, 2019 when
Instagram user Jalaiah Harmon first recorded a video of the choreography with
her friend, Kaliyah Davis, on a social media app called Funimate. Funimate, as
reported by Lorenz (2020), is another “short-form social video app” such as
Dubsmash, Likee, and Triller, “to document choreography to songs they love.”
According to Lorenz (2020), most of the dancers using apps such as those
identify as Dubsmashers. Later this paper will examine the role apps such as
Funimate plays in the journey of some viral dance videos.
The original Renegade is born (Harmon is on the left)
According to Lorenz, in October a
TikTok user with the screen name @global.jones, who is a Black male, changed
some of the moves in Harmon’s choreography and brought the video to TikTok.
@global.jones brings the Renegade to TikTok but doesn't credit Harmon
@global.jones I’m so hot 🥵 fall not coming fast enough 👌🏾❗️but this fye gas this🔥##feautureme ##foyoupage ##tikttok ##lit ##dance ##trending ##viral
♬ Lottery - K CAMP
After @global.jones brought the
dance to TikTok, Harmon told Lorenz (2020) that it spread like wildfire. Soon,
TikTok user Charli D’Amelio (72.4 million followers on TikTok) posted a video
of herself doing the dance. Neither @global.jones or Charli D’Amelio gave
credit to Harmon, the original choreographer. D’Amelio didn’t credit
@global.jones, either (Beg, 2020).
Famous TikTok user Charli D'Amelio does the Renegade and doesn't credit Harmon or @global.jones
@charlidamelio 🥳🤪🤯
♬ Lottery - K CAMP
The Renegade is known for being
particularly complicated and for continuing a conversation about cultural
appropriation of choreography. Cultural appropriation of choreography,
explained by Lo Iacono Symonds (2017), is both old and new.
For as long as they
have been moving, dancers have always borrowed from other forms of movement,
using them as inspiration to evolve their own work. But in recent years, when
too much inspiration is taken, critics have started accusing dancers of cultural
appropriation.
Jacobowitz
(2016) discussed some of the history of cultural appropriation of dance from
African-Americans.
Take African-American social dance, such as lindy hop, into
ballrooms, and the dances have been diluted for European-American audience and
participant consumption. Furthermore, it has been incredibly rare for
African-American dancers and choreographers to receive proper credit for their
creativity and talent (Gottschild, 2003; Hancock, 2013).
The
topic of cultural appropriation is a minefield. Conversations about cultural
appropriation can veer into accusations of “Internet outrage and
oversensitivity,” such as those made by Avins (2015). It’s important to look at
what some consider the absolute don’ts of cultural appropriation. While Avins
does accuse others of oversensitivity, she also outlines a reasonable list of
absolute don’ts regarding cultural appropriation. Avins’ list, appearing here
verbatim, includes:
●
Blackface is never okay
●
Don’t adopt sacred
artifacts as accessories
●
Remember that culture
is fluid
●
Don’t forget that
appropriation is no substitute for diversity
●
Engage with other
cultures on more than an aesthetic level
●
It’s important to pay
homage to artistry and ideas, and acknowledge their origins
●
Treat a cultural
exchange like any other creative collaboration—give credit, and consider
royalties
For the purposes of this paper, Avins’ last two points
are key. Paying homage, giving credit, and considering royalties are paramount
to the treatment of the creation of the Renegade.
This paper will explore the history
of the Renegade and choreography appropriation, the financial benefits of
receiving credit for creating a viral dance, and the etiquette of giving
choreographers credit in an age of viral dance moves. This paper will examine
how social media is opening up new ways to exploit black creators, TikTok’s
role in making it difficult for users to locate the original creator of
content, and issues of etiquette when copying a dance and posting it to social
media.
Analysis
“New forms of racism”
As Petray and Collin (2017) noted,
“The Internet is not a value-neutral space. It comes laden with the baggage of
cultural and social norms.” While introducing new forms of racism, the internet
also offers new ways of challenging racism (Petray and Collin, 2017). Both of
these ideas are at play during the Renegade’s path along the viral superhighway.
Ibrahim (2019) provides example after example of “new forms of racism” similar
to the Renegade in “How the Internet Became a Playground for Exploiting Black
Creators.”
Ibrahim
echoed Petray and Collin:
The means in which
Black niches have been rifled through, hand-selected, and proliferated may not
be new. But the advent of social media has accelerated the speed at which these
trends have flooded into the mainstream and ultimately corporatized for
gain—especially in instances where the nuances of the privacy policy may
contain obscure language that allows for corporations to own, license, and
publish original and innovative content at their whim, however unethical it may
be.
Harmon
and the Renegade battled against exclusion and have set a model for other Black
creators. Chen (2020) reported on a new movement of Black creators calling out
TikTok users who aren’t properly crediting the work of others. One TikTok user,
Zach Jelks, recently asked a TikTok user with 9 million followers, Nessa
Barrett, to stop doing his dances because she never credits the work of others.
Zach Jelks called out Nessa Barnett, with 9 million TikTok followers, for not crediting the work of others
@jelks ##duet with @nessaabarrett please stop doing my dance
♬ original sound - skylarkaz
Chen
(2020) added:
Since the
"Renegade" discussion, people have been filling comment sections on
dance videos that rack up millions and millions of views with tags to the
original creators. Jelks, Sanon, and others have also started calling on huge
TikTokers, like Addison Rae Easterling (who has more than 47 million followers)
and Quinton Griggs (5 million followers), asking them to credit and link back
to creators when they do a dance.
Chen
(2020) reported that the practice of filling comment sections is working and
D’Amelio, who was at the heart of the Renegade discussion, has been tagging
almost all of her videos with its dance creator. That it took involvement from
the New York Times; Teen Vogue; the rapper of the song the Renegade is based
on; the NBA during its most popular weekend of the year; and a movement of
social media commenters demanding credit for Black creators from the white
dancers who have gained popularity by doing these dances indicates some level
of privilege is apparent.
Harmon was invited to the NBA All-Star game to perform the Renegade
Petray
and Collin (2017) and Walter, Taylor & Habibis (2011, p. 7) illustrate why
it may have taken such a massive amount of forces to produce some change: “It
can be ‘deeply unsettling’ for White people to identify their own privilege and
the benefits they have accrued at the expense of non-White people.”
“Technical”
difficulties
While it appears privilege and appropriation are at work
in keeping proper credit out of the hands of Black creators, flaws in TikTok
itself are another hurdle.
As
Jennings (2020) reported:
Part
of the difficulty in crediting dancers is endemic to the TikTok platform. On
TikTok, it’s supremely difficult to determine whose video came first. The feed
is not chronological, timestamps are not included with videos, and hashtags are
sorted by popularity, not time. That means that if someone with more followers
steals your dance, it’s likely theirs will be the one that blows up.
Here's a compilation of people doing the Renegade (no need to watch all 17 minutes)
Wicker
(2020) reported TikTok, like many apps, has kept the details of the algorithm
that places content on its popular “For You” page a secret. However, back to
new forms of racism, Wicker noted users have argued the algorithm is biased
against minority groups. Alarmingly, Biddle, Ribeiro and Dias (2020) reported,
through the use of TikTok internal documents, that the makers of TikTok
“instructed moderators to suppress posts created by users deemed too ugly,
poor, or disabled for the platform.”
Some
believe in the innocence of the algorithm, such as Rio Raab, who spoke to Chen
(2020) at Buzzfeed News. Raab said she thinks the randomized algorithm makes it
difficult to know who created the original, thus creating a spiral effect where
viral dances are occurring with no one exactly knowing where it originated.
Chen
(2020) elaborated on the intricacies of locating an original choreography on
TikTok:
TikTok won't label a
video as the "original" unless you record a TikTok on your phone with
the sound embedded, instead of choosing it from the app. If you simply use
someone else's uploaded music or the app's built-in music, but create your own
original dance to it, your video will not be labeled as the
"original."
Knowing
the technical difficulties of locating the original creator of content on
TikTok leaves room for accidental exclusion and eliminating appropriation or
racism in some cases, despite whether or not preference for certain types of
content creators is baked into the app or not.
A
problem of etiquette
While appropriation and technical
difficulties are potential roadblocks for content creators trying to get proper
credit on TikTok, another aspect to consider is the etiquette of TikTok.
Jennings (2020) posed the question at heart: “When a popular TikTok celebrity
does a dance, do they have the obligation to tag the less-famous person who
invented it?” Jennings put the onus on users of the app to properly credit the
choreographer, “particularly when the dancers who go uncredited are often the
ones with fewer followers, and who likely don’t have lucrative talent deals
with professional management companies.” As previously mentioned, some TikTok
users have begun tagging the original creators if they post a video of their
dance.
Harmon's experience helped start a movement of people calling for choreography credit (explicit lyrics)
@bryansanon ##duet with @qgriggs love everyone showing love to my challenge <3 I would appreciate the big content creators to give credit tho !
♬ 100rackschallenge bryansanon - bryansanon
Chen
(2020) spoke to Bryan Sanon and Zach Jelks, who think crediting the
choreographer is a must.
"It's like citing
your resources. I feel as though if you use someone's idea it is common
courtesy to give them the recognition/credit they deserve," Jelks said.
"Don’t do the
challenge and not do the research," Sanon added. "That needs to
become a must. It’s not fair if two or three people or a Hype House gets all
this recognition and money from things other people created."
Conclusion
Overall,
whether a choreographer gets credit for a dance recreated by others on TikTok
is a murky subject. I have presented some history of appropriation in dance and
how privilege is at play in some instances of not properly crediting TikTok
choreographers. I have examined the current legal landscape regarding
choreography and its protections under the law, concluding legal protections
are difficult, at best, to obtain. The technical flaws of TikTok and how it may
create a roadblock for a user to properly credit the original choreographer was
discussed. Finally, the etiquette of TikTok was presented as yet another
challenge for creators on the app. All of these factors can play a role in
denying income, opportunities and fame of TikTok creators, especially of those
of color, hoping to rise to stardom.
TikTok
has house cleaning it needs to attend to by creating an algorithm that doesn’t
suppress the “wrong” kinds of people from appearing on its popular “For You”
page. TikTok (and other social media) users, especially those in privileged
positions (well-known or “famous”, white, male) should universally adopt the
practice of crediting the original choreographer and helping propel those
creators by watching, commenting and sharing their videos. While copying a
dance someone did may seem like not a big deal, it is a form of power and could
literally mean money, fame and opportunity lost for someone from a marginalized
group or otherwise. Fortnite has set a positive precedent, straying from its
previous path of not doing so, by fully crediting Harmon. It is the
researcher’s hope Harmon was compensated in addition to receiving proper
credit.
This
study is limited in that interviews with TikTok users are outside the scope of
the project, doing so would provide fresh commentary from users not already
featured in the news. Further examples could be examined, such as instances of
white choreographers facing the same challenges as Jalaiah Harmon, if any.
Further examples of uncredited choreography could be examined to see what
percentage of viral dance choreographers received credit, if they belong to a
marginalized group, and what outcomes occurred if they were credited. Further
exploration could have gone into the role gender played in the journey of the
Renegade and other similar instances, as a Black male TikTok user
(@global.jones) was the first to bring the dance to the platform. Like
D’Amelio, @global.jones did not properly credit Harmon for her work.
The researcher attempting to learn TikTok dances after hours of watching videos
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