In the fall of 2019, a 14-year-old dancer in the Atlanta area named Jalaiah Harmon put together a fast, detailed routine set to K Camp's song “Lottery.” She posted it online. Within months, the moves known as the Renegade were everywhere: performed by TikTok's biggest stars, by celebrities and by millions of people in their kitchens.
Hardly any of them knew who had made it. The routine was most closely associated with Charli D'Amelio, whose version helped to carry it to a vast audience. It wasn't until a February 2020 article in The New York Times that Harmon's authorship became widely known. Soon afterward, she performed at NBA All-Star weekend.
Her story is partly about credit, and we'll come back to that. But it also offers a very clear look at the mechanics of how a dance goes from one bedroom to everywhere.
Step one: make it short, loopable and just a little hard
The dances that spread are generally built from a handful of distinct moves that fit a short section of a song. They're hard enough that doing one feels like an achievement and easy enough that a beginner will try anyway. A clip that can be learned in an evening gives people a reason to post, and posting is what the algorithm rewards.
There's also the matter of the frame. Most of the biggest routines happen from the waist up and in a small space, since they have to work on a vertical phone in a room with a bed in it.
Step two: the sound becomes the link
On short-form platforms, audio does the work a hashtag used to. Tap the sound and you'll find everybody who has used it, which makes each new video an advertisement for the trend. The format has older roots. In 2013, the Harlem Shake spread as thousands of groups uploaded their own chaotic versions set to a Baauer track, and a year later the Ice Bucket Challenge showed how a simple, repeatable action can raise a remarkable amount of money for ALS research.
A viral dance is a template. Every person who copies it is also distributing it.
Step three: a big account lights the fuse
Most routines die in small communities, and most of those that break out do so when a large creator picks them up. The original choreographer may have done the creative work, but the distribution happens elsewhere. And since copies rarely tag their sources, the name attached to a dance can quickly become that of whoever performed it for the largest audience.
That is what nearly happened to Harmon. Her case prompted a wider conversation about how often Black creators originate trends while others collect the fame and brand deals. It also changed some habits. Crediting the choreographer in a caption, using “dc:” followed by a username, is now common practice in dance communities.
Want to try one? Set up first
Half of a good dance video is stability and light. Face a window, get the phone off the shelf you've propped it against and set the lens at about chest height. You can also credit the creator while you're at it, which costs nothing and is rather the point of this story.
The trend is the point
Dances come and go at a speed that would have been unimaginable a generation ago, and today's obsession is next month's cringe. If you need a palate cleanser from all of this choreographed effort, there's always the blissful lack of strategy in the pet videos that really do improve your mood.
But the next time a routine fills your feed, it's worth taking a second to ask who came up with it. Somewhere, there is very likely a kid with a phone and a name you should know.