The Hogwarts House Sorting Ceremony has made its way to the kids of Millennials, camera roll dumping is a new trend on TikTok, a hot sauce dance is also taking over the app, the internet is complaining about raisins—plus more internet buzz on this week’s Viral List!
Young Parents Are Holding Hogwarts House Sorting Ceremonies For Their Babies
Millennial parents are having their babies participate in one of the most well known Harry Potter coming of age traditions: the Hogwarts House Sorting Ceremony that determines whether someone is part of the Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff house. And in proper Harry Potter fashion, parents are reserving the tradition until their child is nine-and-three-quarters-months-old (Like 9 ¾, get it?). No Sorting Hat is involved, however. Parents are letting their nine-month-old babies determine which house they’re destined for by placing items symbolizing the four houses in front of them and seeing which one they crawl towards. Videos follow the same formula: products based on each Hogwarts House (like themed onesies or plush toys) are pictured laying on the floor and the nine-month-old babies are seen crawling toward whichever one “speaks” to them the most. Vanderpump Rules star Stassi Schroeder participated in the trend, showing her daughter Harper’s ceremony as she crawls toward a Gryffindor suitcase tag in a video garnering more than 260K views. TikTokers are using #SortingCeremony in their clips, which has racked up 24M views to date thanks to baby Hogwarts House ceremonies and more Harry Potter-related videos (one of the most-viewed clips counts 4.5M views). Harry Potter is one of the biggest pop culture fandoms that Gen Z and Millennials feel a community around (U.K. young consumers say the same), so it’s no surprise that Millennial parents are introducing their kids to the fandom as they come of age, too.
Young People Are Romanticizing Their Ordinary Lives Via TikTok Photo Dumps
Since the beginning of the pandemic, romanticizing your life has been a trend on TikTok as young people find beauty in the mundane to maintain their sanity during a time filled with endless unknowns. First, there was the popular TikTok sound, “you have to start romanticizing your life / you have to start thinking of yourself as the main character.” And now, TikTokers are sharing photo dumps (a.k.a. a series of photos documenting everyday life) set to a remix of “Good Days” by SZA with overlaid dialogue from HBO’s Euphoria. For example, one of the most-viewed clips from @tylerc.98 reads, “POV you take pictures of anything cuz you find everything aesthetic,” as the video cycles through various images including a plate of sushi, a scenic outdoors pic, an art gallery, and a parking garage. Another TikToker, @curlyfro.x, posted three photo dump videos in a row—all of which went viral with more than 38-755K views on each. More than 80K videos have been made using the remixed sound, and several of the most-viewed clips include ones from users putting their own spin on the POV photo dump trend. TikTokers are coming together in the comments, agreeing that the trend is “oddly comforting” and how they wish more social media platforms were “accepting” of this type of content. Spilling one’s camera roll for all of social media to see is nothing new—Instagram and Tumblr were the first platforms to popularize the photo dump. But the trend is finding a new audience on TikTok thanks to the array of storytelling elements users can mix and match to capture the mundane beauty of everyday life. Young consumers are no longer receptive to perfectly-curated images; YPulse’s advertising and marketing research shows that 70% of Gen Z and 69% of Millennials say they like when content from brands is not perfect—and it goes for their personal social feeds, too. TikTok emerged at a time when people were looking for more authenticity on the internet, and the POV photo dump TikTok trend makes users feel welcome to romanticize their lives no matter how mundane it may appear online.
#FoodDance Is The Latest Food (And Dance) Trend on TikTok
If TikTok is known for anything, it’s that food and dance trends tend to go massively viral, whether it’s as normal (and delicious) as feta pasta or an unlikely mashup like #HotCheetoSalad. Now, food and dance are simultaneously blowing up on TikTok for a new trend known as #FoodDance. #FoodDance counts 1.5B views on TikTok and first went viral after John McGinnis (@johnmcginnis36) posted a video where he takes a bite of a Subway sandwich and starts dancing while moving his hands in a chopping motion up and down, signaling how “fire” the food tastes. The clip has garnered 8.6M views to date and has become the main focus of McGinnis’ TikTok page, evolving into what’s now known as the “hot sauce dance trend”—some of his most viral videos are ones where he pours steaming hot sauce over various food like noodles, broccoli—you name it. TikTokers are recreating #FoodDance by pouring sauce / condiments over their favorite food, taking a bite, and dancing to the song featured in the original clip from Russian music artist, Moreart. Popular TikTok creators like Tony Lopez, @totouchanemu (known for TikTok’s “Stay” trend), and Noah Beck have participated in #FoodDance. And just like most dance trends on TikTok, the song used in McGinnis’ original clip is just as important as the actual dance—1.9M videos have been created using the #FoodDance track. Whether food is the focus of a TikToker’s clips or not, the song has become its own dance trend with celebrities joining in—Lizzo recently broke the record for most people to ever do a single TikTok trend after participating in #FoodDance during one of her concerts. McGinnis now has over 5M followers on the app thanks to his new dance trend that really wasn’t even trying to go viral in the first place.
Raisins & Mac & Cheese Are Dividing The Internet
In other weird food trend news, a raisin and mac and cheese dish (yes, you read that right) is going viral on TikTok after @TexyKitchen1 (a.k.a. Chef Texy) shared a recipe where she bakes a dish of mac and cheese with…raisins. In just three days, Chef Texy’s video has garnered more than 11M views, and TikTokers are sharing their reactions—unfortunately, this mac and cheese food mashup hasn’t been as highly “praised” as Van Leeuwen’s sold out Kraft Macaroni & Cheese ice cream flavor. One user commented, “Soon as the raisins went in I was done” while another reads, “Did you just put in raisins? Hell no hell no. Helllll no.” TikTok and Sun-Maid also commented, with TikTok sharing, “Is this the place to complain about raisins,” and Sun-Maid said, “Ya even we can’t get on board.” Twitter users are also protesting the dish, with tweets saying anything from, “The only thing raisins belong in besides Raisin Bran Crunch is certain types of salad. That’s it,” to “Nah imagine eating Mac and cheese and you taste a raisin?????” Clearly the people have spoken, but considering that Chef Texy is known for her popular food videos, we can’t help but wonder if the raisins really do add a special touch to everyone’s favorite comfort food.
Links We’re Passing
Duolingo’s big green owl (a.k.a. Duo) is one of TikTok’s biggest stars thanks to its commitment to “just have fun” on the app while reminding users to keep up with their language learning.
TikTokers are swooning over an actor from L.A.’s Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament theater, “forcing” him to join the platform as his Medieval persona.
Roblox crashed over the weekend, moving some kids’ Halloweekend plans offline.
The award for best Halloween costume goes to Steve Buscemi, who dressed as his own meme from an outfit that his character wore in an episode of 30 Rock.
Taylor Swift announced she’ll be releasing an All Too Well short film in addition to her re-recorded Red (Taylor’s Version) album dropping November 12.
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo will star in Universal’s adaptation of Wicked directed by Jon M. Chu.
A clip from a U.K. dating show, The Love Trap, is going viral on Twitter for its Squid Game-esque tendencies.
Disney+ dropped the first trailer for The Book of Boba Fett—a spinoff of The Mandalorian.
Greta Thunberg and youth climate activists gathered outside the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, calling on the importance of youth leaders in addressing the world’s climate problems.
Meanwhile, K-pop group BLACKPINK also addressed world leaders at COP26 in a PSA explaining that it’s more urgent than ever to address climate change before the opportunity “slips away.”
