🎵 Top Sounds 🎵
Our curated picks of the top sounds on TikTok
I’ll Be Around 👯♂️
This song from 2004 is making the rounds on TikTok as a dance trend. I even saw someone recording this dance in a parking lot last week.
Tube Girl 💃🏽
Tube Girl Sabrina Bashoon is a TikTok sensation. She radiates confidence in her tube videos which has caused people to copy her signature 0.5 camera swivel from London to New York. Tube Girl is making a big case for public transit.
Girl Economy 💁🏾♀️
This sound from Mina Le’s video breaking down the girl aesthetic is being used for OOTDs and celebrations of being a girl.
SkeeYee 🤸🏽♀️
This sound made it to the top of the first TikTok Billboard chart. There’s no defined trend attached but at over 400K videos using the sound, it’s definitely popular.
Goin’ Down To The Railway Station 🧡
Michael Cera singing Clay Pigeons is a Fall trend. Pair this sound with a cute autumnal video or photo slide. Take this video of a borzoi on a train as an example.
Mitski is always there for your sad content. Pair this with your frustrations and disappointments.
This sound turns “how to dress to attract men” on its head as women on TikTok subvert every piece of advice. Olivia Rodrigo even used the sound to show off new merch.
🔉 Our Sound Highlight 🔉
I Pay Attention To Things Most People Ignore
Mood: 😏
Olivia Rodrigo released the song equivalent of America Ferrera’s speech in Barbie. This sound is being used to highlight the little joys in life, and the things people commonly overlook.
🎥 Video Highlight 🎥
Twilight Fall is here. And yes my highlighted brand account of the week is Pillow Pets. I couldn’t help myself, this is social strategy at its finest.
👹 Effects Highlight 👹
Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
This CapCut template is largely being used with pets but I can see the potential for anything to be your sea, sunshine, star, and moon.
The mouse (Tutter, for the OG fans) from Bear In The Big Blue House is a surefire winner whenever it is in a CapCut template. So if you’re into making templates you might want to consider it.
🗣️ The Moment 🗣️
Issues that are at the forefront of online discourse— the year of the girl
Girl dinner, girl math, and hot girl walks have provided months of fodder for traditional media to exclaim “What the hell is going on with Gen Z?” and “Girls? That must be bad.”
Media taking a trend amongst young people and blowing it out of proportion is a standard at this point. I like to imagine they hang a sign-up with all the key points of a “Young Women Are Doing Something: Uh Oh” article with the state-required minimum wage poster.
Gen Z TikTok trends is kind of my turf and you might think I’m being protective of that turf but that’s not what this is. Trend journalism is culture journalism. Looking at social media can be a great insight into what millions of people are interested in and how public discourse is changing. Even in more esoteric trends, there’s something to be learned.
Trends can be reductive, they can be reactionary, and they can be restrictive. The very culture of trends can be seen as a homogenizing force demanding compliance with the norm. But all too often there is an inordinate focus on trends that are largely harmless. In the case of the girl trends, I believe they’re more than harmless, they point to an increasing desire for young women to feel in control.
Is a hot girl walk all about vapidity? No. It’s a little walk around the block to feel human in a workday, playfully aligning yourself with other women in the process. Likewise, girl math is less about women being “bad at math” and more about casual budgeting, finding ways to justify treating yourself when everything is expensive.
Girl trends are here because women have a voice on social media. They have a way of building culture and community. Many of the girls of girl trends are, in fact, teen girls! And for those who aren’t the term is reclaimed, a positive way of aligning yourself with women. We’re witnessing the death of the phrase “not like the other girls.” We’re even expanding girlhood beyond gender, with many who partake in these trends not identifying as women.
Girl is simply a state of being— fun, defiant, silly. The girls are simply girling.
☕ The Zeitgeist ☕
Hot topics from across the internet
Writers Guild of America got their deal! And this is why unions matter. S/O to CA for passing UI for striking workers.
Men really care about the Roman Empire according to a TikTok trend with millions of views. Whether men are thinking about the actual Roman Empire (interestingly not the Roman Republic) and not just the movie Gladiator is a different matter.
I tried it out and it turns out I’m the one who thinks about the Roman Empire more. Which isn’t surprising, between Hypatia and Agrippina the Younger there’s much to consider.
Tech journalist Taylor Lorenz has a book out about influence online you can read an excerpt about one of the first influencers now.
Dietician influencers are being paid by lobby groups to persuade American consumers to buy soda and other products sold by companies like PepsiCo.
The downfall of Glossier and the girl boss was broken down in The Cut.
An influencer is claiming to be able to heal your vision and that nobody needs glasses.
TikTok has its own Billboard chart now. Finally, Billboard is recognizing the influence TikTok has on music.
🥡 The Takeaway 🥡
AI content is becoming an even larger presence.
In the last few months, AI songs have really taken off on TikTok. At the beginning of the year, creators were using Chat GPT to come up with video scripts and ideas, often to show how Chat GPT would comedically miss the mark. But now a major platform is integrating AI directly in their content creation tool.
YouTube announced a generative AI feature for YouTube Shorts creators. They’re calling it Dream Screen and the idea is that Shorts creators will use it to make backgrounds and images that would be hard to replicate without artistic and animation skills.
Whether users want this kind of AI-generated content remains to be seen. Thus far AI has been popular on TikTok for its novelty but hasn’t become an integral part of content. Users might even be concerned about what more AI means for them. After all, Forbes has reported that FOBO is going around.
The relationship the public has with AI and the relationship tech companies have with AI are at odds. But it’s certain that AI will be taking up more and more space on social media.