Why "Wednesday" Dance Is Addictive and buzz on TikTok
Nothing that Wednesday Addams accomplishes happens by chance. She is the Addams Family member who is the most reserved and deliberate, making few superfluous facial or eye motions.
Therefore, when the generally depressed girl in the new Netflix series bearing her name became captivated by the spirit of dance at her school dance, it immediately generated buzz both online and offline.
The brief sequence, which accounts for less than three minutes of the entire series, has already established itself as "Wednesdaymost "'s recognizable scene due to how liberated our eccentric protagonist seems to feel. Her eyes reveal an uncommon, ghastly passion. Her normally attached limbs are now free to move about. There are many stiff, stilted gestures and references to earlier decades in the dance, which is undoubtedly her. Nobody could possibly confuse Wednesday's dance with the newest TikTok craze, right?
It seems like something about that strange dance unleashed something strange in each of us, and it's spread faster than a fire at Camp Chippewa. One of the streamer's most popular shows ever ("Stranger Things," who? ), clips of the choreography encouraged fans to check out the series.
More than ten years after its initial release, Lady Gaga's "Bloody Mary" returned to the charts thanks to its internet popularity, and it did so only because fan-produced TikTok, not the actual program, used it! The "Wednesday" star Jenna Ortega's revelation that she created the practice herself opened the door for new followers, including famous people, to give it a try and even incorporate elements from their own cultures.
If Wednesday Addams discovered her dance routines had entered the mainstream, she would probably be horrified. However, she might even love the fact that her dance hasn't died. What gives the "Wednesday" dance its uncanny longevity is as follows.
The scene has a unique mythology
Even though the "Wednesday" dance culture has only been around for a month, it already has a specific "mythology," according to Jenna Drenten, an associate professor of marketing at Loyola University Chicago who focuses on how TikTok users express their identities.
Additionally, Ortega has acknowledged that she is not a trained dancer, which may make her performance even more enticing to non-dancers who discovered the routine on TikTok, according to Drenten.
I'm sure that's clear, but I'm not a dancer, Ortega told NME.
However, Ortega's commitment has also sparked criticism; according to NME, she recorded parts of the dance as she awaited the results of the Covid-19 test, which ultimately came back positive. Some criticized the production for not following the correct Covid-19 prevention practices on site as a result, but "Wednesday" kept garnering attention.
According to Drenten, the trending topics that go viral and stick around in popular culture the longest frequently cross over from their original platform. Regarding the Corn Kid: He made an appearance in a YouTube series praising the praises of the corn cob. After TikTok users shared clips of his performance, he went on to promote corn offline for Chipotle, Green Giant, and the state of South Dakota.
"TikTok trends have to make that leap to a cultural trend, beyond the limits of TikTok, to have a longer shelf life," she said. "The Wednesday" dance had a benefit in this regard because it and "The Addams Family" heritage were created independently of TikTok from the beginning.
The "Wednesday" dance has evolved into a custom
The human propensity to learn a dance for social currency is another another advantage the "Wednesday" dance has over other dances. Consider dances like the "Electric Slide," "Macarena," and "Cupid Shuffle," which are common at weddings and bat mitzvahs and which many of us can execute automatically. It would appear Pavlovian to perform them in unison during such an event, but Drenten explained that it's also a shared ritual that develops "a sense of unity and belonging."
Every gesture and action, according to Drenten, enables the performer to innately convey the message, "I get it, I'm in the know, and we have this shared experience."
This contributes to the prevalence of dance moves on TikTok, including those to songs like "Renegade" and "About Damn Time" by Lizzo. The "Wednesday" dance, however, was not accompanied with a well-known song, despite the fact that The Cramps' punk anthem "Goo Goo Muck" has subsequently gained some new admirers. The maneuvers were "straightforward but unusual," according to Drenten, and were simple enough to learn.
But Lady Gaga was necessary to elevate the "Wednesday" dance to new heights. The version that has become extremely popular on TikTok is a sort of "fancam" or mashup of video, set appropriately to Gaga's "Bloody Mary," a Biblical homage to dancing without restraint. Even Mother Monster, who was decked up in two lengthy braids, gave a rendition of the "Wednesday" dance.
Since then, millions of users have given Wednesday's school dance solo its own unique spin. Some users have done this by adding Polynesian or Indian dance moves to their renditions or by creating their own Wednesday outfits (including Thing, the disembodied hand!).
Wednesday allows us to be eccentric
Being a part of something is obviously contrary to Wednesday's attitude because she has never cared about fitting in. She is completely satisfied living on her own island, where the sun never shines and there are plenty of traditional torture devices. Although Wednesday's reputation as a patron saint of weirdos may be threatened by the extent to which her eccentric actions have been imitated, this hasn't been the case for decades.
Since the late 1930s, Wednesday Addams has lived in several forms: initially as an anonymous comedy character, then as a small girl on a TV sitcom, and last, in her most well-known incarnation prior to the release of "Wednesday," as a dead-eyed Christina Ricci.
According to Drenten, Wednesday followers have been dressing up as her for years, frequently being inspired by Ricci's portrayal of the character. Her biggest fans can no longer keep the fact that she is the oldest Addams child a secret from mainstream popular culture.
She has been an eccentric figure to loners and goth-adjacents since her Wednesday debut for her unrepentant dedication to the macabre. She's still a "outlier" among fictional women and girls since she has never adapted to common plot devices, according to Emily Alford for Longreads. She won't change; she is who she is.
She brought to the screen a morbid self-acceptance that made her stand out and served as a significant model for a generation of girls who would later develop their own kind of gallows comedy, according to Alford.
And now, many of those users are meeting up on TikTok, where specialized communities can grow (or reach mainstream users). Drenten claimed that the app is a "place for people to discover who they are, and more crucially, to find other people who have their similar interests," even if those interests include dressing up like a certain apathetic adolescent.
Users of TikTok may experience pressure to act, perform, and appear a specific way because the app, in Drenten's opinion, encourages a lot of reproduction. But Wednesday serves as a reminder that it's liberating to be oneself in a sea of similarity.