TIA: In the past year, we’ve seen a number of tracks rise to the top of the charts here
on Genius, in part thanks to the lip syncing social video app TikTok.
TIA: In August 2018 TikTok acquired Musical.ly, a platform which was pretty much identical,
but just a month later, TikTok already had more monthly downloads than Facebook, Instagram
and Snapchat.
TIA: And all those downloads did a lot to sway the tide of what songs blew up.
TIA: YouTube duo iLOVEFRiDAY’s diss track “Mia Khalifa,” sat at the top of the Genius
Songs chart for months, and their reign on the charts was all thanks to TikTok.
TIA: Genius spoke with Taylor Lorenz, a staff writer at The Atlantic who writes about how
social media platforms affect society and culture.
TIA: According to Lorenz, TikTok’s enormous scale has made it easier for the app to become
such a force in today’s cultural landscape. Lorenz told us quote:
TIA: And she’s right.
“Mia Khalifa” started blowing up online after TikTokers kept sharing videos of themselves
playing the track under the #hitormisschallenge.
Okay, I'm gonna do a challenge here in Wal-Mart to see if there's any TikTokers.
HIT OR MISS!
I guess they never miss, huh?
TIA: According to Genius data, pageviews of the “Mia Khalifa” song page jumped from
around 1,400 in late September to almost 25,000 by the end of October.
TIA: The hashtag has over 80 million views on TikTok, and the song even found itself
bouncing on and off the Spotify U.S. Top 50 Chart.
SMOKEHIJABI: Everything we do has a reason, it’s just like people be like ah you dissing for clout,
everything has a reason, everything is orchestrated.
TIA: Besides “Mia Khalifa,” a number of other songs started popping off on Genius
thanks to viral challenges, too.
TIA: Chicago rapper CalBoy has been rapping for a minute, but hit it big after his track
“Envy Me” blew up towards the end of 2018.
TIA: When it first dropped in September of that year, “Envy Me” was averaging around
120 pageviews a day, but by November that number had jumped to the thousands thanks
to the #NayahXTweaking challenge that started on DubSmash.
Genius spoke to Nayah Rice, who started the challenge on social media.
NAYAH: When I heard it I was like, Oh I can dance, I can snap to that. And then like,
I just basically went off after that. I just made moves comprehending to the sound.
TIA: Pretty soon the dance migrated off Dubsmash,
with people posting themselves dancing to it on TikTok with hashtags like #EnvyMe.
CALBOY: It was a cold beat.
I didn’t even know what to say on the beat because it was so cold.
TIA: The song page was at 2,000 pageviews at the end of October, and just a month later
surged to almost 10,000.
TIA: On December 26, it entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart at No. 91, and peaked at #41.
TIA: And the more lip syncing videos people post of a track, the further we can expect
a song to get on the charts. Lorenz told Genius quote:
TIA: Wisconsin singer Ava Max experienced something similar
after her own track, “Sweet But Psycho” got a bump on Genius from both
a Snapchat filter and a TikTok challenge.
AVA: I like to make my songs theatrical always so it’s kind of over exaggerated but in
a way I’m really reclaiming the word psycho.
TIA: The track dropped in August 2018, but by October, “Sweet But Psycho” had experienced
a huge jump in pageviews, averaging between 7,000 and 10,000 daily, after it was used
in a Snapchat filter.
TIA: On TikTok, the #sweetbutpsycho hashtag has over 50 million views, with fans continuing
to upload new clips daily.
TIA: But in terms of who gets paid from TikTok, that’s where things get complicated.
Many artists have yet to see any money from their viral success.
TIA: Despite iLoveFriday’s original popularity on YouTube with “Mia Khalifa,” they’ve
reportedly worked out a deal with TikTok that lets the service use their song for free,
in exchange for promotion of their upcoming projects.
TIA: Xeno Carr, one half of the duo, told Pitchfork quote:
TIA: Of course, going #1 after you went viral online is nothing new.
We’ve seen everyone from Soulja Boy to Blueface get hits from people reposting them on social media.
TIA: And now, TikTok is the latest in a long line of platforms helping songs go from meme
to mainstream.
TIA: I’m Tia with Genius News, bringing you the meaning and the knowledge behind the music.