5 new TikTok trends that brands can follow

TikTok users appear to be nostalgic lately. Many trends taking hold of the platform over the past few weeks revolve around songs that were popular years or even decades ago—from Katy Perry’s 2010 hit “California Gurls” to Elvis Presley’s “Blue Suede Shoes,” released in 1956. And, as is typical of TikTok, snarky humor and adorable, chubby animals played a central role in several of these trends, as well. 

Here are five of the biggest trends that have gripped TikTok over the last few weeks, including a new, colorful term for personality quirks and people acting up in grocery stores. If you missed our most recent round of trends, you can catch up here.

Left foot, right foot, levitating 

The latest example of TikTok’s unique ability to drive any song—whether new or several years old—to virality, is a trend centered around Dua Lipa’s 2020 song “Levitating.” More specifically, this trend focuses on rapper DaBaby’s feature on a remix of the song, which includes the lines, “Let’s go. Left, foot, right foot, levitating.” 

Though Lipa removed DaBaby’s credit on the song in 2021, after DaBaby made several homophobic and misogynistic comments, dozens of TikTok users have begun creating videos of themselves humorously acting out the lines of his rap through a series of photos. For example, as DaBaby says, “Left foot, right foot, levitating,” users briefly flash photos of their left foot, their right foot and themselves mid-jump, timed to the accompanying words of the rap playing underneath. 

Related: How TikTok is helping brands tap into trending music

The original video featuring this format, posted by user @l0i816, has amassed over 4.3 million views and nearly 1 million likes in the five days after it was posted. And as other users—both human and canine—have participated in the trend with their own interpretations of the song’s lyrics, Lipa’s song has shot up the list of trending songs on TikTok, currently sitting at number three.

Because the user that kicked off the trend set their video in a grocery store, retailers such as Target are already serving as the backdrop of many other takes on the video format. This makes it easy for brands with brick-and-mortar stores to capitalize on the trend and have members of their social teams, or other employees, perform their own interpretations of DaBaby’s lyrics via a series of photos—the goofier, the better!

My “beige flag”

For the past few years, internet-immersed members of Gen Z have referred to various traits of both potential romantic partners and themselves as either “red flags,” or negative, toxic attributes; or “green flags,” those that are favorable or desirable. However, TikTok users have recently introduced a new color to this color-coded system: “beige flags,” or personality quirks that are innocuous yet slightly odd. 

Though TikTok user @itscaito appears to have invented the term back in 2022—and has since declared herself “CEO of beige flags”—the term has only risen to widespread use on the platform within the past few weeks. Since early May, over 9,000 TikTok users have uploaded videos in which they share the beige flags of themselves or their partners, such as being able to memorize nearly every species of shark or stubbornly eating dairy despite being lactose intolerant. 

The beige flag trend has gripped the platform in the past few weeks, with roughly 5,000 TikTok users sharing videos describing their own oddities in just the past seven days. And the hashtag #BeigeFlag has garnered more than 340 million total views, a third of which stemmed from the past week. 

The trend is fairly simple to replicate—all these videos require is a short clip overlaid with text explaining the user’s beige flag and the use of a jazzy musical track that accompanies the majority of the videos involved in the trend. Brands could use this video format to highlight a product in a creative way—for example, a fashion brand having the beige flag could refer to owning every color of a given clothing item or a coffee brand’s beige flag may be ordering the exact same drink every day. Or a brand could just tie itself back to a related personality quirk, as the luggage brand Samsonite did.

“It’s hard to believe…because I’m not” 

This trend draws on a witty line from British mockumentary series “Cunk on Britain,” where clueless reporter Philomena Cunk—played by actress and comedian Diane Morgan—narrates, “It’s hard to believe I’m walking through the ruins of the first ever city. Because I’m not.” 

The audio clip, first uploaded to TikTok by user @ohsheeee_itsafox in January, took off on the platform in early May, as users began employing the trending sound to share their own fake outs. For example, @klayr.com, one of the users who first popularized the trend, took the clip to show how they weren’t actually studying for exams but instead playing an online video game. And, over the past month, more than 140,000 other users have used the original audio to take part in the trend, with the hashtag #ItsHardToBelieve attracting 24 million views in that timeframe—5 million of them in the last seven days alone. 

Several brands have joined in on the trend, too, including Harry Styles’ nail polish brand Pleasing, Ryanair, and even the Empire State Building, which used the trend to describe its ongoing long-distance “relationship” with Big Ben.

“One for the money, two for the show” 

In May, TikTok users discovered that the phrase “one for the money, two for the show” has been featured in three very different songs in distinct ways: swaggeringly in Elvis Presley’s “Blue Suede Shoes,” sorrowfully in Taylor Swift’s “Champagne Problems” and sensually in Lana Del Rey’s “Million Dollar Man.” 

Since then, an audio clip of the phrase being sung by each artist in succession has caught fire on the platform, with users utilizing the trending sound to illustrate the different “vibes,” that match up with each artist’s rendition of the two lines. Initially, the sound largely accompanied videos of users demonstrating “hair theory”—the idea that they could quickly rearrange their locks to complement the style of each song. But the trend has ballooned from there, and users have applied it to convey everything from different fashion styles to their collections of beauty products or makeup. 

Naturally, the fact that users are already incorporating clothing and beauty brands into their videos makes it easy for brands in these categories to join in on the trend, which is still going strong. Over 80,000 users have created videos featuring the audio clip and the hashtag #OneForTheMoneyTwoForTheShow has amassed over 80 million total views, 2 million of which came in the last week. 

Entertainment-focused brand accounts have also leveraged the trend, including the Backstreet Boys’ TikTok page and Vanity Fair’s account.

Green checks and red ‘X’ marks  

Over the past few weeks, several trends have emerged on TikTok that follow the same basic structure, with users taking a song that lists out various attributes and using a green checkmark or red “X” mark to indicate whether the on-screen subject has those characteristics. 

Pets and other animals have been at the heart of many of these videos. For example, one variation on this trend uses Snoop Dogg’s feature in Katy Perry’s song “California Gurls,” where he raps, “Toned, tan, fit and ready. Turn it up, ‘cause it’s getting heavy.” Hundreds of pet owners have set the song to a photo or video of their overweight cats and dogs, adding on-screen text listing each of the words Snoop Dogg states and an accompanying red ‘X,’ before placing a green checkmark next to the phrase “getting heavy.” Animal-centric organizations, such as the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, have also taken part in this version of the trend. 

A trend following the same basic format swaps “California Gurls” for the Brazilian song, “The Girl from Ipanema,” with users instead comparing pets or animals to the lyrics, “Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking” using the same green checkmark and red ‘X’ format. And the newest spin on this trend structure employs an audio clip from the show “Dance Moms” in which Abby Lee Miller says, “Unemployed. Hungry. Dirty. Sad.” 

Thousands of users have shared videos for each variation of this list-based format in the past few weeks, and brands can take part in the overarching trend using any of the three audio clips. This trend would work well for a video of a brand mascot, an office pet, or any other video subject who wouldn’t mind their feelings potentially being hurt by Snoop Dogg or Abby Lee Miller.